Nemesis
by Silk Xiaolong
Summary: "Poor darling. You're afraid of what's going to happen, I can tell...but fear isn't going to make any difference. Now, hold out your hand."
1. Chapter 1

Title: NEMESIS  
Author: Silk Xiaolong  
Fandom: "BBC's Sherlock"  
Genre: Romance/Suspense/Erotica  
Rating: M/NC-17  
Disclaimer: I do not own and am not affiliated with the BBC, Sherlock, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  
Author's Note: I'm dedicating this to my husband, who has been very patient, and puts up with me writing it late at night, in bed.

* * *

_"Do you know what 'nemesis' means? A righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible old cunt. Me." -Brick Top, Snatch_

Molly Hooper knew from the very first day he sailed through the morgue doors that she was doomed.

Prior to this dramatic intrusion into her existence, she hadn't been the sort of girl to look for trouble; through hard work, she had made a nice, practical life for herself, and was quite content. But then he appeared so suddenly with Dr. Stamford, and after she peeled away her stained latex glove, his hand swallowed hers, grip firm on the powder-covered skin. Molly looked up at him, and realized with a start that nice and practical would no longer be enough. Suddenly, she craved more.

Flattered though she would have been to hear Mike refer to her "the best lab tech", her ears had shorted the moment the friendly professor introduced the man he called the "world's only consulting detective". Sherlock Holmes was quite tall, and every bit as imposing as his name: The dark, curling hair, bright hazel eyes, and pale aristocratic face were framed by the upturned collar of his long coat, and the crook of his mouth suggested an arrogance found to some degree in all really beautiful people. Somewhere far away, words were being spoken, but his intensity drowned out all sound.

Suddenly he let go and beckoned her with an almost secretive gesture, then turned on his heel and strode toward the lockers, all without a word. Unsure, she followed after him, face creased with confusion as he swung open one of the heavy doors and tapped an occupied berth with his long forefinger.

"Open it, if you please." His voice was a copperplate baritone which seemed to make the words almost like a command—she glanced at Mike, who nodded his assent. The lab tech struggled with the normally practiced motions as she pulled out the slab and unzipped the body bag, then stood back as he studied the elderly male from head to toe.

"Head wound. Tripped going down the stairs after one too many gins."

Molly did a double-take. Mr. Holmes had rendered hours of collaborated work moot, all with a just few pointed words. It was the same with the next, and the next; one corpse after another accurately diagnosed only moments after she revealed them. Molly couldn't help but smile as they worked their way down the row, delighted by the amazing ability. When he glanced toward her, Molly's eyes flicked down at the body, heartbeat uneven, but wandered back helplessly as he began to examine the throat. They'd reached a particularly tricky one, and he paused for a few seconds, righted himself, and curled his long fingers into a fist beneath his chin. The stoic face split with a boyish grin as though delighted by the cause of the person's demise, and the sight of the dimples did something funny to her stomach.

Molly admitted as the two men went up to the lab that she had never been more attracted to a man, or more confounded.

It took her less than five minutes to get to the cantina for coffee, and her pulse raced in the elevator as she carefully clutched the hot paper cups. Mike was appreciative, thanking her sincerely: the striking creature beside him, however, seemed to have shifted moods, and scowled into his cup as though he suspected her of poisoning it.

"Is something wrong?" She did her best to smile pleasantly, but her lips kept doing funny things she couldn't control.

"Sugar. I take sugar." He set the coffee down on the metal table and was about to return to whatever Mike had exhibited at the microscope, when a dozen sugar packets materialized at his elbow. The hand that held them shook, and while Molly felt like she was feeding giblets to a jaguar, something had her determined to please him. His pale irises were nearly colorless under the brilliant fluorescent bulbs as they glanced at her hand, and when they settled on her face, her meager defenses fell to ruins: while she had heard of people "undressing with the eyes", this was totally different from the sleazy glances blokes threw across the pub. She felt more naked under his gaze than she had ever been on her short forays into sex.

With one inscrutable look, he had her, whether he wanted her or not. Molly would fetch him sugar and coffee to the ends of the earth—she'd buy it out of her own pocket if she had to—if only he might look at her like that again, smile slightly and thank her like that, with that voice and those eyes. No matter how rude he was in the future, or how awful his remarks seemed, Molly always remembered that first day and the gracious way he accepted the sugar—not to mention the fact that he hadn't called attention to the other pocket of her lab coat, which bulged with plastic cups of creamer.

To try to get acquainted with Sherlock Holmes was more an all-out war than a battle. He was a bit of a bastard, and he didn't make any pretense about it. All thoughts of conventional love were doomed to wilt under his biting tongue and his slanted looks. Many times after the visits that required her assistance, she vowed it would be the last time she gave in, that she would never spare him another glance; but then he invariably came back and she lost all track of herself; the very sight of him rooted her to the spot with giddy nerves. Molly could admit that her addiction was foolish, but not that it harmed her. Life had never been so exciting, so unpredictable! Elation punctuated the days he appeared, and she positively floated the rest of the week before things grew dull once more.

In most of the time they spent together, Sherlock remained the very definition of intangible aloofness. When he arrived he immersed himself in work that no one could fathom, and was curt enough to cut when anyone asked after it. Molly understood that at least—she had practically penned the geek manual, and though she was much improved socially since school, she still wasn't as confident as she wanted to be. Ironically it was him, a person with no interests beyond what lurked in petri dishes, who possessed the power to turn her into a dithering mess, which he used against her frequently. Despite this abuse, she couldn't give him up. If he came late on a day shift, she inevitably found an excuse to stay on as well, banishing thoughts of her waiting cat and pre-recorded programs. When he was occupied, her gaze was drawn to his cryptic profile, unable to fathom what went on behind the carefully cultivated mask he presented to the world.

Hospitals produced gossip like a well-oiled machine, and as the sleuth made his presence there known, he was allotted a large share of the speculation. Most everyone found him unbearable, but all were interested in his personal life, or rather, his lack of any apparent one. Molly kept an ear out and tried to sort the wheat from the chaff. Much thought had been given to the man in the three-piece suits who sometimes accompanied Sherlock, but never deigned to give his name to anyone: The head nurse could verify he was a government stuffed-shirt of some sort, but that was as much information as anyone had accumulated. Paul in Radiation had five quid on Sherlock being some kind of spy, or government agent, and that the man with the umbrella was his "minder" or something equally ridiculous. Molly discounted that right off; no one blended in less than Sherlock Holmes.

In the cantina she overheard one of the surgeons remark around a mouthful of meat pie that the two men looked alike, and the next time she saw them together she decided that he was right. Similar in height, their eyebrows and foreheads were of nearly identical shape. Sometimes when the unknown official tilted his chin a certain way, his thinning gingery hair looked like it might once have contained a rakish forelock. Related then, but how, she didn't know, and felt far too timid to ask.

Another strange thing that captured attention was the old woman. Molly, not being someone who usually worked with patients, didn't know of her visit to the hospital or Sherlock's odd presence at her bedside until Meena came down to the lab one day, bursting with the news. The pretty nurse said that she herself had found him in the dark curtained-off recovery area while the lady was still under the effects of her anesthesia from a hip procedure. He had been seated silently in this random woman's hospital room while she slept, like people often did for ones they loved. Meena had found it rather sweet, but her supervisor hadn't: There was some noise about it within the administration—mostly from doctors who had been stung by Sherlock's insults to their competence—the general complaint being that Sherlock had no right to interfere with patients.

"Mike marched right in there and put a stop to that," Meena breathed excitedly, "you should have seen him! He was steaming."

Molly's brow furrowed, confused. "So what does that mean? Who was she?"

"I dunno! Everyone's trying to figure that out! She's released now."

"Did anyone actually ask Mike?"

Meena looked surprised by the suggestion. It took Molly several days to work up the courage to approach him herself.

Mike Stamford seemed amused when she shyly asked after Sherlock, and whether he was okay after the incident, though they both knew it wasn't unusual for him to not come to Bart's for weeks.

"Hadn't told him about it, actually." The jolly man answered as he sat back on his chair. "Didn't think he needed to be bothered with it."

"Who was it?" Molly blurted, then blushed. "The woman, I mean."

"Oh—it was his landlady, a Mrs. Hauton or Hudson—she was in quite a lot of pain, and he made her come and have the surgery. The NHS wait was too long, and she hadn't the money to go private, so he paid her way." He chuckled when he saw her stunned face. "He's not a complete git, though he does a good job at convincing people."

"How do you know him?"

Mike shrugged. "Got me out of a jam once. Er—I'd rather not talk about that," he said, and looked slightly abashed. "But then his brother made contact and asked me to set him up here for the cases he takes on with Scotland Yard."

"His brother? Is that the man I've seen him with, the one with the umbrella?"

"That's him. Pulls a lot of weight, because there's no other way I would have been able to convince the administration to let him have access."  
So Sherlock Holmes had a brother, and a landlady he was fond of. She turned this over in her mind.

"Do you know why I'm telling you this Molly?" Mike asked quietly, face uncommonly serious.

She shook her head.

"It's because I know he can trust you." Then he grinned cheekily. "I know a little more—would you like to hear it?"

No two people on the earth could be less alike than Molly and Sherlock, as it turned out. The Holmes family had money, and Sherlock had been to Cambridge and Oxford, but was thrown out of both. He had never had a romantic relationship as far as Mike knew, and no one he would label a friend. He was married to his work, and that was perhaps their one area of common ground. After he returned to Bart's on more cases, she considered (cherished) the idea as they sat together in silence and poured over things that no normal person would ever care about. Molly seemed to be the only one who Sherlock deemed fit to converse with on a regular basis, and was the only person allowed to touch his tools or experiments. She also had to be the one who sat patiently and let him talk at her in long run-on sentences when he needed to sort ideas. Molly might have gone so far as to call them "lab partners". But when Dr. Watson started renting from Sherlock's landlady as well, the sleuth had no further need of her in that capacity. She tried not to be too disappointed, because Dr. Watson was really very nice, and he softened some of his flatmate's prickly edges. Rumors flew thick immediately after Sherlock gained his towheaded shadow, and even Molly wondered at the easy banter between the two; but she did catch Dr. Watson looking down her blouse when she leaned over a body one day, which lead her to believe it wasn't exactly true, at least on the veteran's behalf. Sherlock had a knack of taking up all the room in a person's heart, and Molly could only imagine what it would be like to have him in bed—lunacy, probably.

"Patience is a virtue": It had been her mother's motto for so many years, until her father had died. So, she was patient, mostly because she wanted to believe. The brunette knew she shouldn't hope that someday, Sherlock would look at her again and see something with those preternatural eyes that he had missed before, then suddenly reach out and pull her onto his pedestal. It wasn't healthy to believe those things. Yet a romantic she remained. To stop dreaming at this point was to give up, and to give up was not to love him anymore, which was impossible. She would have to bear it and try to shelter her tender feelings at the same time.

* * *

The true test began one stormy night in early spring during a long shift that was hardly half over. Most everyone had left, so Molly had little to do but enjoy the antics of cats on the internet for a few hours. She had just settled in comfortably when a notification pinged her inbox. She opened the folder and had to scan the title multiple times before it clicked that someone had left a comment on her oft neglected blog, for the entry made yesterday.

Curious, she opened the message, the username making her temporarily halt.

"Jim…." Molly frowned. She hadn't ever known any Jims…the message was one sentence and very simple, a question about her job and something about her nose: Molly's hand flew to the offending body part. Was this stranger actually reading her silly diary? She was more embarrassed by the knowledge than she thought she had a right to be, considering she had posted it in the most public forum imaginable. It had simply never happened before.

She decided to demand the identity of her singular "fan", but didn't expect such a prompt reply: Apparently he worked in the upstairs IT department, and was stuck in the hospital for the night as well. Thunder trembled the antique building around her. She didn't know how many minutes she stared at the illuminated screen, trying to work out what this person was doing reading her awful blurbs, when another message appeared.

_Are you all right? You've gone quiet…_

Molly chided herself. She was being very silly—he worked at Bart's, right upstairs! How dangerous could that be?

It had been a long time since a man had flirted with Molly, or paid compliments of any sort. Intrigue charged her fingers, and they typed a little faster on the next reply. When he asked to meet for coffee in five minutes—just upstairs in the canteen—she hesitated only a moment. Didn't people always talk about how you should be careful with whom you met on the web? But there was nothing to do, and the thrill of having a secret admirer of sorts nudged her onward. She accepted, shut down the computer and darted through the heavy security door to the staircase. Did she really have a cute nose?

Molly crept into the dim dining room and surveyed the mostly deserted space with some apprehension. Three people remained this late at night: A dinner attendant wiping down tables, a janitor collecting bags of rubbish, and a dark-haired man, youngish, seated at an angle to the long table and reclined on the back two legs of a hard plastic chair, engrossed in a mobile. Was that Jim? Molly secretly hoped so—he looked quite…fit. The man seemed to notice her hesitant approach and looked up, his eyes hooded, almost sleepy. She smiled uncertainly and crossed the remaining distance between them; Jim stood with a smile and slipped his mobile into his attractive jeans. He wasn't tall, but he was taller than her, and something about the assuredness in his actions when he lightly touched her shoulder and leaned in to kiss her cheek made Molly feel every millimeter of the difference.

"I wasn't sure you would come." He said, and his voice was warm, a round Irish note to the vowels. "Hope I didn't scare you or anything—saw you in the corridor the other day, and I asked someone who you were." He grinned and slid a hand in his pocket, cords in his thin arm standing out, quite devastating.

"No—I—you didn't scare me." Her hand fluttered between them, not sure how to express her pleasure without seeming overeager. He pulled out the chair he had been seated in moments ago for her, and she accepted the gallantry with another blush.

"I'll just pop over to the hatch and get the coffee." She watched him jog out of the room surreptitiously, his lean body worthy of admiration. The tentative excitement rose again in her throat, less tempered now by doubts. This was the guy that had read her blog? And he was still interested in her? Molly twiddled the badge on her lab coat self-consciously; then remembered that the shapeless white garment didn't do anything at all for her figure and completely washed out her skin (recent knowledge courtesy of Sherlock). She quickly shrugged out of it and straightened the neckline of her blouse before Jim returned bearing two of the familiar flimsy cups. He set one before her with a retiring smile, glanced at her from under almost girlish lashes. "There you are," he offered, "I just started here, so not sure how the coffee is, really."

"Awful," she confessed, "but I'm so used to it I love it." She grinned, nervous, and he grinned back as he shoved in his chair. It the low light his eyes were incredibly dark, but when he smiled they crinkled wonderfully. He was lovely, she thought, and thunder rippled through the night again. What was the harm? It felt good to chat, and be paid attention to.

"S-sorry?" She stuttered and blinked owlishly as she realized Jim had just said something.

"I was wondering how you and your new cat were getting on."

They chatted for half an hour about mundane topics, discussing her family, her new cat, her career, her uni—but he was so interested, laughed, asked questions. Molly was so focused on this that she didn't notice she hadn't found out much about him, other than that he was indeed Irish, had no family like her, and also enjoyed cats and coffee….  
The mobile in her discarded coat trilled a familiar and well-anticipated tune, and like reflex, it was in her hand before she could even consider her impromptu date.

_45/M/possible poisoning, coming in right away. Two coffees. SH_

Her heart leapt, and for a few seconds she floated on the thrill of so much good fortune in one day, before she realized she was being rude to the sweet IT tech.  
"So sorry! I…my…." she stuttered, but Jim continued to smile in that film star way, and Molly blew out her breath and tamped down the anxiety Sherlock always gave rise to. "Sorry, bit of an emergency."

"Boyfriend? Sherlock, isn't it? Sorry," he said quickly, as she felt her mouth go round and the blood drain from her face, "I did read your blog."

"Oh! No, no, Sherlock isn't—I don't have a boyfriend," she managed, cursing her own stupidity. If only she had remembered to omit Sherlock's name in her online ramblings in the first place…"Er—we're just friends, Sherlock and I." Molly inwardly winced at the fib; she very much doubted Sherlock would count her as such.

"Forgive me for being nosy—but he doesn't sound like much of a friend. From what I've read." Jim smiled apologetically.

"Oh. Well, that's just…Sherlock." She squeaked awkwardly as she began to gather her lab coat and bag. His smile turned shy again, and to her shock, he reached across the table and took her hand before she could stand up. Molly squeaked.

"Sorry—I know I'm being really forward—I usually don't do this, but I've been wanting to find you and ask since I saw you in the hall. Would you be willing to have dinner with me sometime?"

The pathologist tried to speak, choked on her own saliva, and felt her face flame as she managed a fierce nod.

"Great," Jim looked very pleased. "I promise you won't regret it."

When a very wet Sherlock stormed into the morgue with DI Lestrade later, he stopped short in the middle of a belligerent sentence to the harried-looking man beside him, eyes clapped on the woman who daydreamed at the computer, so engrossed she barely looked up.

"Are you alright?" She asked when she noticed his stare, nonplussed. His face was like stone under his dripping hair, and he said nothing.

In a flash, Molly realized she had forgotten his coffee.

"Sorry!" She cried, and laid her clipboard on the table by the corpse Sherlock had requested. "I completely lost track of myself. He's all yours, Sherlock—I'll just get you lads a cuppa then. Be right back!"

Lestrade's eyes lingered on the door she had disappeared through with that telltale expression males only assumed when they imagined coitus with a woman. Then he threw Sherlock a look that the sleuth instinctively felt offended by. "Someone's got a one-up on you." The detective inspector chuckled.

Sherlock Holmes sniffed dismissively and went about his business with the bright orange victim on the slab.

* * *

Jim was a charmer. While he was gentlemanly toward Molly, she was happy to find him not lacking in excitement. Each time she "bumped into him" in the corridor or "had a problem with her spellcheck", his wit and charisma seemed to double, anticipation really taking hold. They set a time and place for dinner; somewhere very nice that Molly had always wanted to go to. Hot rollers burned her scalp as she slid on her good knickers and the pretty bottle green dress she had never thought she'd have occasion to wear, then proceeded to agonize over her makeup for an hour. After all was done she scurried about and threw everything out of place in various drawers, cupboards, and wardrobes around the flat, and as a final touch, she placed some hopefully unobtrusive candles in her bedroom—just in case.

He rang the buzzer right on time. In her haste she tripped going down the last stair in the new heels, stumbled headlong toward the door, and by sheer luck managed to catch her fall on the handle. Perhaps it was an omen, she thought with a rather hysterical giggle. Nervous hands smoothed her skirt and fluffed her curls, and as she stepped outside she made sure to smile: but at the sight of him, it faded to a light gape.

Usually the men who took her out wore denim, nice shoes and a jumper on dates: She had expected much the same from Jim, considering he dressed casually every day at work. But tonight he almost looked like a different person, his tufted brown hair slicked back, resplendent in matching navy trousers and jacket, hands seated casually in his pockets. He moved close, and her body broke out into a full sweat at the scent of his cologne as he leaned in to kiss her cheek, mouth slightly rough with the five o' clock shadow that never seemed to go away.

"You look fantastic." His warm hands grasped hers then slid up and down the bare skin of her forearms, and when their eyes met she shivered, her thin bolero doing nothing to shield her from the cool spring night. The cab waited on the street and he ushered her toward it.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was as nice as she had imagined, but she instantly felt underdressed, the retro frock turned suddenly shabby. She let the maître d' take her wrap reluctantly and Jim seated her once again. A jacketed waiter reached past her to pour a glass of wine; she kept her back ramrod straight and waited until he left to clutch it, desperate. How on earth she was going to save herself from total embarrassment? Luckily, her companion sparkled as always, and between the witty banter and the wine, Molly was soon at her ease, vision tunneled on Jim. He was outrageously funny and had her in stitches, and while she could feel the looks from people at other tables, she paid them no more mind. Jim didn't seem to care what others thought, so why should she? He focused solely on her, and barely looked away even to order. They entered a lengthy discussion about Bart's, the quirks of their respective lines of work, and hilarious things that had happened to them while on the job…and somehow, the conversation turned to Sherlock Holmes again. Alcohol loosened her tongue and Molly spoke freely about her "friend" and his extraordinary skills, happy to have something to talk about that had her companion rapt, sexy black eyes glowing in the candlelight. So she just kept right on with it; described her favorite cases and stories, even some of the man's more silly quirks. It was only when their meals arrived that she realized she had blathered on about one man while on a date with another for nearly a half an hour, and her mouth snapped shut. Guilt rounded her shoulders.

Jim noticed immediately. "Are you alright?" He reached across the table and gently took her hand in his before she could pull into herself. His calloused thumbs swept over her hand and her heart skipped a beat despite herself.

"Yes, of course. I-I just realized how much I was talking."

"I like it when you talk." His gaze smoldered and Molly swallowed hard, curling her hand around his fingers.

Outside she realized the wine had truly gone to her head. They clutched at each other, and their laughter echoed as they stumbled up the street, like any of the hundreds of young couples that she had seen and felt envious of before. Jim flagged a cab and bundled her in, nuzzled her hair and neck as he mumbled the address to the driver. Molly closed her eyes, felt soft and almost tentative lips place a single kiss on her jugular. And then he tilted her chin and kissed her deeply, and though she had expected it, her mind suddenly wandered back to Sherlock, her impossible dreams of Sherlock doing these things to her: The eyes, the hands, it was simply wrong. She broke off and angled her eyes away, disgusted with herself.

"What's wrong?" His plaintive breath tickled the round shell of her ear.

Molly was a nice girl, who had been raised to never try to hurt anyone. Jim was sweet, so sweet, and very handsome; he was treating her the way she had always wanted to be treated. No matter how much she longed for it, Sherlock could never give her those things. Don't question it, she thought resolutely. Just let go.

Her apartment was warm and cozy when they came through the door, and she scurried to fetch wine glasses and bottles while Jim politely made friends with Toby. Eventually they seated themselves on the sofa, and Molly bit her lip as he manned the corkscrew, let the adrenaline slowly creep into her system. They flirted, drank, and watched mindless telly until she got up the nerve to crawl into his lap and plant her lips on his.

Jim chuckled against Molly's abruptly wanting mouth and pulled away, dropped his head back on the sofa with an expression that could only be described as smug. His hands became friendly with her bottom, smoothing over the satiny fabric of her dress while he licked the taste of her from his mouth with a thoughtful grin. "My my, aren't we bold."

Molly blushed, then wriggled on his lap slightly and watched the interest rise higher at the back of his eyes. "You make me feel bold." She leaned into his hungry hands, relished the sensation as they trailed upward to her neck and drew down her zipper audibly. The moment he touched bare flesh, he lunged for her mouth with the aggression she craved. She moaned into him, slipped her arms from her sleeves so she could bury her own hands in his neat hair as her teeth sought his full bottom lip.

The bodice of Molly's dress fell around her waist, the lacy gray bra exposed, and he took shameless advantage. She shuddered hard against him, grip greedy on his wiry frame. The nice tie was yanked askew, his collar and buttons opened hastily in her inebriated lust. Hot fingers dared to slip past her knickers before they gripped the soft flesh of her bottom tight, jerked her to him and ground against her through their clothing.

She had never felt so wild. It was everything she had ever wanted—well, not everything, obviously—but it was someone who really knew what they were doing and was willing to do it to her, someone who really wanted her…her desire to give was boundless and being allowed free reign; even if it wasn't quite what she had envisioned, she took with both hands…and god, he really was amazing at snogging and her knickers were soaked….

Feeling daring and wonton, Molly broke the kiss. He hissed at the sudden denial and tried to go at her again, but she pushed his shoulders back against the settee roughly before she slid boneless down his body, smile shy and eyes glazed. Her knees met the floor, and he chuckled again as she pulled his belt free, ran her hand over his hardness through the soft linen reverently. He leaned back, waited, almost dared her, and she didn't look away when she undid the button and zip and brought him into the open.

Molly felt powerful and minxish as she petted him lightly with both hands, testing by squeeze and feel: Jim seemed more than happy to oblige her and shifted his hips as she stroked him once from root to tip. His eyes were nearly shut when she began to adorn the spongy head of him with kisses, and his hands fisted in her hair as she prodded with a pondering little tongue. The brunette felt bold indeed. She wanted to explore where she had only dared fantasize about in the past, and she slid wet lips over his rigid flesh, just enough for a curious taste.

He groaned, pulled on her curls. The sensation made her gasp, lick at him harder.

"Fuck, look at you." His voice was dark and his hands stroked her hair from her face impatiently. "Such a good little girl."

Her eyes met his, but they didn't really see him, so focused was she on her work. She was careful and a bit dainty with her ministrations; but eager, so eager, and Jim let her prove it to him, and Molly didn't shirk. She swallowed slowly afterward, looked into the blackness of his eyes, as she licked him from her lips.

The man's face was tense. "On your back."

Her body burned as she lay down on the rug and tossed the useless dress over her head, courage humming in her veins. She was only in her matched set and stockings now, and while her first instinct was to cover up, the look on his face stopped her. He mounted her, his eyes restless, his clothing and hair disheveled and face devious, and she gasped as he bit at her bare thigh, her waist, her bicep and shoulder, growled deviously as his hands found her knees and hauled them up.

"Mmm, pet. You're perfect, just delightful," he laughed throatily again, "I wonder if you've ever had a boy go down, hmm?"

Her face flamed, and the answer was obvious.

"First time for everything." He smirked, and tore her good knickers, the elastic fabric burning hot across the skin of her hips for a second before they gave with a crackle and startled a drunken little yelp from her. His hands coaxed her knees as wide as they'd go with his hands, and her body convulsed, ticklish, as she felt his breath caress her stomach, her abdomen, nether regions, thighs...she watched him with trepidation as his hands tightened, and he looked up, meeting her gaze and giving her an exaggerated wink. Then he kissed her unspeakably, with all the force of before, but on her wet vulva, and it was so intimate she cried out, waves of hot and cold shock coming down over her head and drowning her.

His tongue was savage, merciless, and went to work at her as though determined to taste every crevice, to debauch her completely. Molly was amenable to that, if only he would find a way to soothe the points of her body that suddenly burned white-hot. No one had ever done this before to her, but she could tell Jim was well practiced when he stabbed his tongue into her deeply and curled it just where she needed pressure, making her struggle against his grip as her thighs shook. He groaned into her before his focus settled on her clitoris, lapped and worried the node with firm suction, then pressed down almost painfully with the flat of his tongue, hot breath flowing over hypersensitive nerves.

"Ungh!" Her fingers gripped his hair and she cried out, sobbed helplessly against the pleasure as he sucked and kissed. "Oh god!"

She thought he muttered something like "that's right" into the vulnerable hollow of the join of her groin and thigh before he licked her there, then caused her volume to spike and her shoulders to contort against the floor by lightly lapping at her clit again. It was wrong, it was bad, it felt so good; Molly clutched helplessly at nothing to get away while she simultaneously tried to ride his face, but to no avail: he was too strong. Powerless to do anything but give in to him, tension bowed her back, and at last she let go with a wail as her stocking feet slipped and slid against the rug.

His smile was shark-like as he asked her to lead him to the bedroom, and she had to lean on him to walk, her legs trembled so badly.

The next morning when she awoke Jim was, by some miracle, still there, and still utterly pleasant. Molly stared dreamily at him over her tea. At lunch he rang her to ask her out, and they sat at Regents and munched on egg rolls, and the sun made a feeble attempt at spring. It was perfect, utterly perfect, and the pathologist was dazed by the sudden perpetual euphoria. People stared as she passed; men took time to talk to her who had never before, and women gave her knowing smirks in the corridor. They all knew, but she didn't care, she didn't care…everything was perfect.

Their next date, however, was not. Jim was supposed to come to her flat for a homemade dinner, but an hour and a half passed with no sign of him. Molly had sent a couple of texts, but there was no reply. Worried, she moved the food on the table back into the tiny oven and sat on a chair in the narrow foyer. When the familiar static finally echoed from the call box she rushed for the buzzer, pressed against the wooden door with bated breath to hear his footsteps approach. When she opened it, he entered as though nothing was amiss, but his greeting was quiet, and he seemed distracted. She went to ready the table and noticed that from the moment he walked through he drummed his fingers on every surface he stood near. She tried to remember if he had done that before. They sat down and her eyes flitted between the lasagna she forked onto his plate to his blank countenance as he stared into the middle distance between them at her gram's chrome-legged kitchen table, not even moving for his fork. Molly asked him if he was all right, and his focus zeroed, sharpened on her was eerily reminiscent of someone else she knew; but there was no analysis in Jim's eyes when they met hers. There was nothing there at all. Her heaping spatula paused in midair, body frozen like a mouse staring down an adder. His face looked pale and sweaty, strained, neck corded, gaze flat.

And then it passed. "Sorry pet," he blinked rapidly, scratched the corner of his eye, "bit tired." And he looked down at what she'd set before him, smiled with every tooth in his head, and took a gigantic bite. His eyes bulged and a zealous sound of appreciation emitted from around the food. Molly realized she was dripping tomato on the tablecloth. She quickly set the spatula down and tried to shake the unease that had overtaken her.

The odd behavior continued all through dinner, and Molly began to think of polite ways to ask him to leave. She began to put the dishes in the sink to soak when he stood from the table and rounded on her, locked surprisingly strong hands on her body and lifted her onto the messy worktop. All the reasons for him to go flew out of her head at the look on his face. He hiked up her skirt, pulled her new knickers to the side and put his mouth on her pussy again, which caused her head to collide with the cupboard above her painfully. Whatever he did with his tongue on her clitoris, it wiped the rest of the questions from her mind and she screamed, really screamed. He was on his feet like a shot, hard cock at the ready, and pushed in with one long thrust.

"Jim!" Molly cried, and he made a savage noise next to her ear before his hands locked on her hips, held them in place as he began to hammer into her, and his shoulders fairly vibrated under her grip. His gaze was primal concentration as he stared down at where they connected and fucked her even harder, pulled up her thigh harshly as he angled downward into her upturned pelvis. Molly curled forward around his shoulder with a winded shout, and she barely felt her tailbone and lower back thump painfully into the wood as she touched something deep inside her. The limited space folded her nearly in half and every shunt of his hips drove the breath out of her. She hiccupped out a moan, managed to curl her leg around the curve of his hip and lever upward slightly with her knee to grind her pubis against him. Her fingernails stabbed through the t-shirt and all her muscles pulled incredibly tight before she released; he arched with an obscene groan as her hard spasms pulled the orgasm from him. Long moments passed as they just breathed hard before he pulled out, and she slumped against him and the cupboards, supine. Jim leaned into her a moment more before he blew out a hard breath and straightened with a lazy laugh.

"Much better." His smile was more normal this time, and she couldn't resist the answering curl of her mouth, deafened by the sudden rush of blood in her ears. That had easily been the most wrenching climax she'd ever had, and Molly could do little but dangle her slack arms around Jim's neck and slump against him, let him transport her to her soft and waiting bed.

It felt very early when she woke suddenly later, feeling strange, heavy and full of dread, as though she was sick, or had woken from a nightmare. Her mind stirred slowly.

Jim.

Blearily Molly sat up and pulled back the quilt, but her lover wasn't beside her. She snuffled and opened her eyes a little wider when they fell on a shadowy figure at the end of the bed, struggled to focus. Naked shoulder blades and vertebrae were pronounced and awkward in his thin body, the ridges highlighted faintly in the light of the street lamps, and he hunched, as though in pain. The heavy sensation grew within her, and she wanted to say something, reach out, speak, but Molly found herself unable to move for the second time that evening. Was that really her lover, sitting there?

She exhaled his name, barely even a whisper, but when his head angled around, it was just Jim. It was dark enough that she didn't notice him set something on the nightstand as he moved toward her on the matress. "Hello pet." He whispered in his pretty voice as he rolled her beneath him. "Did you have a bad dream?" And then he pressed his mouth to her and spread her easily, rocked into her, gentler this time, slower, taking his time as he swallowed all her gasps ravenously. When she came, he absorbed each cry of her pleasure, his lips sealed to hers as though trying to suck the life out of her, then shuddered silently in orgasm. Finally, he relented and rolled away. She gulped air desperately, and the endorphins and slight oxygen deprivation relaxed her toward sleep once more. Molly didn't register Jim's movement until a cruel sting pierced the underside of her bicep. She cried out and her hand moved toward the pain, but he caught her fingers and pressed them against his smile. Instinct urged her to move even as the motivation drained from her limbs, mind drifting.  
"What a good little pet," he murmured, his hand passing over her face as oblivion claimed her.

When she awoke, he was gone, and while she remembered his arrival, she couldn't really make out the rest of the evening; her head seemed to have swollen to chewed gum, and she wondered how much she drank...but the clock said she was nearly late for her shift, so Molly pushed it to the back of her mind and gulped down some coffee to clear the cobwebs.

Sherlock and Dr. Watson made a visit that day, which woke her up more than caffeine ever could. Sherlock demanded time in the lab with the some shoes, and then firmly asked her to leave them in peace until his sample matched and she could make herself useful; but not to go too far, he didn't want to have to send John to fetch her. Used to these "requests" Molly sighed and went to putter around in the filing room a couple doors down, her usual haunt. When the computer sounded its findings, she jumped up from the small stepladder and hurried down the hall. Sherlock was smiling triumphantly, and that almost made the half hour in exile worthwhile.

That was when Jim decided to pop in. Molly greeted him brightly to cover the butterflies that rioted suddenly in her stomach. Sherlock would invariably say something awful to the poor man. What she didn't expect was for her boyfriend to practically elbow her out of his way to be introduced to the detective, who steadily ignored the way Jim hovered over his shoulder. Curiosity finally got the better of him though; he spared the IT tech a glance, before spitting a word that made Molly's stomach twist and her brain go numb all over again. She could barely muster her attention enough to respond to her so-called boyfriend's parting words, or to agree to meet for their dinner date. As soon as Jim left the room, she pounced on the man seated complacently at the microscope, for once as thoroughly angry as she should be. How did he always manage to turn her world upside down so quickly?

"What do you mean, gay?!" Molly demanded, and Sherlock launched into one of the swift, clipped exhibitions of his powers of observation, looking quite pleased with himself and throwing in a dig about her weight, before producing the most damning piece of evidence: Jim's number, tucked under the petri dish he had knocked off the table in a fit of giggly clumsiness.

The unlucky woman could do nothing but run from the room and charge into the nearby deserted lockers, where she intended to find a corner in which to curl up and die, or have the imminent bawl that was pressed so insistently behind her eyes and nose. Instead she just looked around the room, breathed hard and rubbed her palms on her trousers, panicked. Sherlock was never wrong about these things. If it were true, then that meant—could a gay man really falsify the kind of experiences that they had shared together, even if not attracted to a woman? It didn't seem possible to Molly, but then again, nothing was impossible if Sherlock said it was so. As much as she had longed to strike out verbally at him in return, she couldn't bring herself to deny her faith in his abilities. But that was so unfair to Jim: If he were gay, then why on earth would he pursue her as he did? The pieces simply didn't fit.

She found herself in the ladies' without really knowing how she got there, her fingers closing around the old porcelain basin of one of the taps. Tears were coming now, visible in the mirror, and she brushed at them angrily. Molly didn't know who to be angry with: Jim, Sherlock, or herself. Sherlock naturally rose to the forefront of her mind. No matter his motives, his delight in his own abrasiveness hurt. And Jim, the way he had been around Sherlock…But if it were true, if Sherlock was right, then was Jim at fault at all? People couldn't help being gay.

They could help sleeping with other people though….

At war with herself, she uncertainly took out her mobile and flipped to Jim's number. Should she call him, text him?

And say what exactly? Oh hello darling, I just wanted to ask you if you were actually homosexual?

She backed against the wall and slid to the floor with a groan, mobile clutched to her chest. No, no, she couldn't do that: Breaking up with people that way was low, very low, and not polite at all. And she had to hear Jim's side of it all first.

She would ask him at dinner.

Cabs were a difficult place to apply gloss in at the best of times, and her hand kept missing as her thoughts began to jostle nervously in her head the closer she came to their meeting place: What should she say? What should she do if he told her he was indeed gay?

So wrapped up in her worries was she that the cabbie had to tell her the fare twice as she struggled with her wallet and perspired lightly in the spring coat she wore.

Jim waited for her inside, fingers flying over the touchscreen of his mobile. Molly at last thought to wonder who it was he texted—she had never even heard him mention friends or family of any sort. Be calm, she warned herself as she smiled weakly, accepted his kiss and seated herself. Go slow.

But it was hard to follow her own advice when the first enthusiastic words out of Jim's mouth were "Loved meeting your friends today!"

The half-hearted smile she was trying on wilted further. "Oh. Really?"

"Especially that Sherlock bloke. Fascinating." His face was animated and he nearly bounced in his chair, and if he saw her slump, defeated, he didn't mention it. "It's all so exciting, isn't it?"

Forehead crumpled, Molly looked up from menu she grasped to keep the tears at bay. "Exciting?"

"Yes, yes, exciting!" There was something slightly manic in his words. "Everything is really happening now, isn't it? We're all getting to know each other so well!"

He looked at her expectantly, but she was at a loss for words, the plastic menu flexed out of shape in her hands.

"I don't understand. W-why do you care so much about him? Sherlock I mean?"

Jim's face twisted as though she had just asked the stupidest question imaginable. "Uh, hellooo, your big hero, world's only consulting detective? Y'know, that guy you've been pining away at for ages? Such an honor, you know, to meet someone so inspiring, so utterly brilliant and unique."

Her jaw slackened, but he wasn't through, and his voice grew louder, began to swing from tone to tone like someone carelessly bashing fingers on a sour piano. "Is it really true what you said, about him being able to read people? To look right at them and just know what they're like, and everything they do? I'm terribly interested in that, terribly interested—do you reckon he'd be good in bed? I mean, JUST IMAGINE!"

She had never felt so small in her life. People looked at them, stopped talking. She couldn't really wrap her mind around the words he'd just practically shouted. A vague question of how he had known came to her, but the shock had her thoughts in the wrong order. Molly half expected him to continue the rant, but the odd insanity seemed to suddenly pass again; he relaxed back in his chair and took a measured sip from his waterglass as though nothing had just happened.

"Jim," it came out a croak, and she tried again. "Jim, please. That's just the way he always is. He just—he can't help it."

"But don't you see, that just makes it all the better? No, no, don't listen to me," he turned away in apparent despair, scrubbing at the side of his face, "I'm such a righteous bore when I'm disappointed, I get all woo-oo-oo." He twirled his fingers, eyes rolling with the wild little sound effect. "Listen," he said seriously, "don't pay it any mind." His smile was patronizing.

"Jim, I don't think you're gay! At least, I really hope you're not gay. I mean, it's okay and everything if you are—but I like you and I like being with you!" The sudden torrent of words poured from her like water, and while she tried to keep her voice down, it broke a few times around the thing stuck in her throat.

He sighed and leaned on one hand, as though the conversation had grown stale.

"So you're breaking up with me because I might be a homosexual? A bit discriminating for a girl like you…you should take what you can get, you know."  
Her mouth opened and she tried to say something, but could only gape. The strange man across from her seemed to like this, a simple smile tugging at one side of his mouth.

"Oh, you're so understanding, aren't you?" The soft taunt was clear. "Look at you, the picture of innocence in all this." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "But we both know the truth, don't we pet?" His brows waggled significantly and his voice became low, guttural, mouth twisted around the deliberate words. "You just loved getting stuffed by a guy you barely knew. You loved it when I put my mouth on your sweet little puss, and you loved it when I fucked you silly."

Molly was dumbstruck. She couldn't fathom what was happening, or even who this awful person was across the table from her. His words came in, and she heard them, but they were so barbed she simply shut down like she did when Sherlock cornered her, but this was so much worse.

"I can't deny it, I liked it too." He leaned closer. "You have an exquisite little snatch. Just sublime."

And then he was on his feet. "Well, this has been quite lovely, but now I'm afraid I've got to dash." He exclaimed airily, and tucked the corners of his mouth down in an exaggerated pout. "It was loads of fun. Maybe we can do it again some time. See you around, pet."

With the toss of a wave over his shoulder, he swaggered away, and she simply sat there and shivered like a frightened rabbit as she watched him go. The restaurant was acutely silent.

"Is everything alright, Ma'am?" The nearest server came over to ask once the chatter had started back up.

Molly avoided the sympathetic woman's eyes, jumped to her feet. "I-I've got to go," she muttered, and made a break for it.

The night was spent in tears. She didn't know exactly what just happened, but she felt she had insulted Jim somehow, made him lash out. Maybe Sherlock really had outed him, and he was embarrassed…Molly went down the list, struggled to reconcile the man she had seen today with the man that had spent the better part of the week with her. He hadn't showed up for his night shift, and his supervisor had texted her. She posted a plea on her blog in case he would read it, begged him to call her and tried to impart how worried they were. What if he had done something awful, had hurt himself? It would be all her fault. She huddled by the radiator with her laptop, sniffling.

The ping that signaled a new message had her scrambling, but it was just a notification for John Watson's blog update. Molly sat up straight in her cocoon of blankets: Apparently they had solved the case! Even though she still smarted from Sherlock's comments, she couldn't help but be proud that she had aided him yet again. Eagerly she brought up the link with every intention to forget her troubles in a good mystery.

Ten minutes later, the hand that shut the laptop trembled. She was unable to look at the same indelible words any longer—especially the parts where Dr. Watson remembered her by name—oh god, couldn't he have blacked it out like the rest?

All those bombings…so many of the crimes she had read about in the past…those people...all the work of Jim Moriarty! It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be, it was too ludicrous...

Through the shock and horror, fear was starting to creep in: He had been here in her flat, he had sat at her table, used her toilet, pet her cat, been in her bed…oh god. Oh god oh god….

She made it to the sink just in time, stars bursting across her watery vision and floating away slowly as she heaved, tried to breathe around the shame. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't be….

Shrill and sudden notes echoed through the flat and she jumped with a shriek. Her mobile clamored and clanged across the tabletop, the general ringtone for an unrecognized number. She just watched it warily and counted the rings. The blog made one thing clear: Jim, or Moriarty, was still on the loose…what if…?  
The ringing stopped and a voicemail blip appeared on her screen. Molly brought the device to her ear slowly.

To her horror, it was worse than Jim. Detective Inspector Lestrade's message was short and clipped, asking her to call him back. Her stomach began to roll again…yes, worse than Jim would be all of the Yard and Sherlock to know what she had done with Jim…The Detective Inspector picked up on the first ring.  
"Lestrade." His slightly husky voice came over the line quite authoritatively.  
"H-hello, this is Molly Hooper." Her voice was meek. "You wanted me to call you?"

"Ah, yes, Molly." His tone was all business, and the feeble hope that the call was a social one was snuffed. "We were wondering if you could come down to the station and answer some questions about the past week." She sank onto the nearest chair, her worst fears realized.

"I-of course," she choked. "Am—Am I in any kind of trouble?"

"God no!" He sounded alarmed. "No Molly, you're a victim in this, that's clear. We just want to—gather some information."

When she swallowed her throat was so dry it clicked. "Okay." It was nearly a whisper, and when he spoke again his voice was deliberately very gentle over the line.

"I promise that what we talk about will never leave my confidence. If you want, I can come over to yours and we can talk there instead."

Molly bit the knuckle of her thumb. "…Alright."

To his credit, when he arrived he was very professional, but also kind, even though it was clear it had been a bad night for him. His questions weren't as invasive as she feared, and she was able to answer most of them without hesitation. When he cautiously asked her if Jim had hurt her, however, she couldn't help the flinch.

"I…" She struggled for a moment, tried to find words. "No, not really. He just was very strange in the end."

Lestrade frowned. "How so?"

Molly pressed her lips together. "He just started saying…awful things. And talking about Sherlock…" She turned away, Mike Stamford's endorsement of trust ringing in her ears. "I told him everything about Sherlock. I didn't know, I swear!"

"It's all right." Lestrade's hands were warm and protective on her shoulders. "It's not your fault. He's a mastermind, an expert con. I'd stake my career around the fact that you're innocent here, Molly."

"He did say he would see me around," she murmured, "he did say that."

"I can have someone watch the building if you're afraid he might come back."

The inspector's handsome face was sincere and Molly found herself managing a weak smile.

"That's alright…I'm sure he's far away by now. I was just a…pawn." Bitterness crept into her voice despite her best efforts, and the hands on her shoulders squeezed.

"It's only natural to feel this way." His voice was quiet, calm, but by the look on his face she could tell he wanted to ask her more. She tried to inject some reassurance into her voice—anything to put him off that."

"I'm really alright, Greg." He smiled at the use of his name and she thought perhaps his hands lingered a second before he pulled back and stood.

"If you need anything," he reminded her firmly at the door, "just call."

The next day at the hospital, everyone stared, and the morgue had a sudden influx of random visitors who all just needed to come down there on one errand or another, apparently. Molly just ducked her head low over what she was doing and tried to ignore the curious interlopers, glad that her mother was in Australia and probably wasn't aware of the existence of Sherlock Holmes, much less her daughter's indiscretions with a terrorist. She had to miss her lunch to upstairs for a talk with her bosses, mostly about personal responsibility in the workplace. Her humiliation was nearly complete, she thought as she trudged back to the lab. She waited for the doors to fly open and that familiar dark figure to billow in and deal her the final blow, but it didn't happen. She had expected he would have wanted to question her as well, but there was no sign of him for some time, nor was there any further word about Jim Moriarty from any "official" source. They had forgotten her. She would have to fight off the wolves on her own, and she wasn't sure she would ever be able to completely live this down. When Sherlock did finally come around it was months later, and he didn't mention anything about it. Apparently he had come to the same conclusion about Molly that Jim had: she wasn't important.

But he did seem more affable in their dealings that summer, sometimes even asked her opinion or thoughts on cases (though she doubted he actually listened). Dr. Watson also went out of his way to engage her, and the look in his eyes when he asked after her made Molly think that it was probably out of guilt—but she appreciated the gesture and couldn't help but have pride in the fact they took her opinion under serious consideration—or at least, John did. As the year drew to a close things seemed to have gone back to normal, so when she received a hasty invitation from the blond doctor for a get-together at Baker Street, Molly had been thrilled. They really did count her as one of them, as a friend.

* * *

The holidays had lost a lot of its cheer when Molly's father had passed on the night before Christmas Eve five years prior. Since then, Molly's mother had moved halfway around the world to get away from the memories that London held for her, and Molly was alone for the occasion. She had tried to put up lights and other decorations in her flat, but it simply seemed like a waste. There was no one to see them, anyway, except the cat. However the snow that had started to fall and the invitation to a Christmas party sent a little thrill through her she hadn't felt since she was a child. She put on a rather daring black number with sparkly silver straps, and added some festive accessories, even slipping a spare bow from the parcels she had amassed for everyone in her hair. By the time she left her flat, London had donned a glittering winter coat, and she blew foggy puffs of breath happily as she got into her cab.

But when she arrived, it was to find the master of the house in a fit of pique, unwilling to be cajoled by holiday fun. John, however, seemed very merry and perhaps a little drunk as he helped her out of her coat with a low "Holy Mary!" Mrs. Hudson cooed, and she felt Greg Lestrade's eyes on her back, but it was difficult to enjoy their admiration when the man she had dressed up for wouldn't even spare her a glance, but Molly smiled nonetheless and accepted the drink Greg Lestrade handed her. Sherlock had haughtily installed himself at the computer and irritably stared at the screen, and she tried to ignore the way he seemed to brim with repressed energy in his seat as she asked after everyone politely. He reminded her of Jim when he got like this, and she prayed that a tirade wasn't to follow—but then he rounded on John and Greg, then turned on her as quick as a snake and proceeded to have a little fun at her expense in front of their handful of mutual colleagues while she stood there under his heartless breakdown of everything she was. It felt like betrayal, what he was doing now, cracks in the tenuous and unspoken covenant between them since Jim Moriarty had shattered the peace. When he flipped the card on the confiscated parcel his face fell. The revenge was not sweet for either of them. Molly wasn't sure where she found the words to quietly admonish him, but it was clear they had an effect, and he bent his proud neck to kiss her. But then he swept away moments later on suspicious business to add insult to injury, and her gift sat on the table, neglected, much like Molly herself.

A late call into the morgue and there he was again, with his brother and a naked dead woman, no less. Yet another cab ride home, and Molly pressed her forehead against the cold glass, but instead of London flying by, she could suddenly see a long succession of empty holidays stretching out before her just like this one. She wished she didn't feel as though her heart were breaking at the thought. When she finally returned to her flat she didn't bother to turn on the lights, just collapsed onto her sofa, more than a bit lost. She pressed her face into the cushions, breathed in and out, and let the sensation lull her. A noise turned her head to the feline sitting on the lamp table beside her, looking like a content, fat hen. "Hello darling." Her voice was weak even to her own ears. "Merry Christmas."

Toby hissed and jumped to his feet in response, tail bristled.

"Toby?" She raised her head, startled.

"Damned cat." A low voice muttered behind her, and she whirled on the couch with a shriek, which startled the tall shape that had just emerged from the bedroom wearing gloves in the dark. "Fuck," he growled, and lunged at her before she could scramble from the sofa. His weight drove the air from her lungs and pushed her flat against the cushions, and before the terror of what was happening could really take hold, an acute stabbing pain emanated from her arm. She shrieked again, but the sound was stuffed into the padded seat.

"Nighty night princess." She heard him whisper as the faded chinz pattern became double, then triple. "Pleasant dreams."

But when Molly Hooper slipped into the ether, it was nightmares that greeted her, the unknown drug spiraling through her veins.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: NEMESIS  
Author: Silk Xiaolong  
Fandom: "BBC's Sherlock"  
Genre: Romance/Suspense/Erotica  
Rating: M/NC-17  
Disclaimer: I do not own and am not affiliated with the BBC, Sherlock, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  
Author's Note: I apologize. This chapter did not want to be born. I changed everything once, then threw it all out and started over again. Once again I took some serious liberty with the timeline, and, of course, Jim, because he's so much fun to play with.

* * *

No one had seen him enter or leave, he was sure. Sebastian casually looked right to left, zipped up his leather jacket further and shoved his gloved hands into the pockets. All evidence of the twenty-two minutes passed inside the flat, and the success of his mission, he left behind in a rubbish bin a couple of buildings down. The cheap wool hat he'd bought at some shop flattened his lengthening dark hair around his brow. No one had recognized him yet, even here in the capital of the country where he was most wanted, and Sebastian intended for it to stay that way. To anyone in the middle class neighborhood around him, he would be invisible in his faded jeans and old boots. A double vibration from his phone signaled his pick up was en route. Until the car caught up with his position, he would walk, and have a much-needed fag. Taking one of his last out of the squashed pack in his upper pocket, he lit it, and tugging at his collar, started up the street again.

His boots crunched on the snowy pavement, long legs marking a sure, unhurried pace, keeping his head down against the wind that tore the clouds of smoke from his nose and mouth. The residential street was sparsely decorated, and the hour was late: No one was about, and enough powder was still falling that the tread of his boots would soon be obscured, the odor of his cigarette long gone. No trace. Just as Jim had reminded him in his most irritating voice. The one that scattered the lackeys and set Sebastian's teeth on edge.

It was rare for his employer to be so constantly agitated, so close to the edge of his usually perfect control, ready to lash out at any moment. It had been a particularly trying year for Sebastian. The former freelance mercenary found Jim's fascination with the "consulting detective" to be a thorn that hooked deep: for months he'd hoped that eventually, Jim would grow bored, and allow Sebastian to take care of it. He'd been relieved when he'd got the call in Prague, where he'd been attending to their long-neglected business matters with the thugs running the red light district there. He was nearly at the airport when his phone strutted the familiar opening bass strains that never failed to send his pulse doubling. Sebastian had brought the mobile to his ear wordlessly, waiting, already knowing what he was going to hear.

"I've changed my mind." The connection crackled, but there was no mistaking that lackluster voice on the other end.

Sebastian had gone back to his hotel deeply concerned.

Even as the supposed right hand in all Jim's affairs, Sebastian had never once openly questioned the man's motives, nor had he been invited to do so; so he hadn't, ever, not once. He liked his balls where they were, thanks. At Jim's behest, Sebastian had ordered the worst of the worst, and he himself had committed some of the most unforgivable crimes he could think of...But none of their previous business in seven or eight years had made Sebastian so uneasy.

He was a hunter, and of the professional opinion that Sherlock Holmes was just the sort of beast one fells with a single shot, between the eyes. If this man was anything like Jim, anything at all, then the most unwise thing would be to sit around and poke at him with a stick. He had already blasted sizable holes through their British Isles operations, and unlike his boss, Sebastian wasn't getting off on watching this bloke wreak havoc, or cleaning up after it. It became immediately clear to the sharpshooter that first day, dealing with the general of Black Lotus, how quickly, how easily things could unravel completely. With just a few, well-chosen stabs in the dark from Sherlock Holmes, all they had worked for, all Sebastian had worked for, would be undone.

Jim knew that, he had to. Yet he remained altogether unconcerned with money, or the power accumulated: Holmes was his new plaything, the only thing that he now cared for. Whatever he was cooking up in regard to the vigilante was incredibly extensive, and Sebastian found himself saddled with those increasingly strange details as well.  
The plain brunette he'd left out cold on the sofa, now already several blocks behind him, was an ideal example of the strange dynamics this new mania of Jim's had taken on. His boss had actually gone so far as to seduce her, and if that wasn't odd enough, he'd insisted on doing it under an elaborate cover. In seven or eight years, Sebastian had not once witnessed Jim so much as dirty his cuffs. Not even when Sebastian sensed he would have very much liked to. If the slight man had one consistent boundary of self control, it was keeping himself aloof, watching others carry out his commands from the shadows, so the blood slicked from his back like water off a duck. But recently this little fixation had led him to throw precaution to the wind. As Sebastian saw it, it was all for some elusive promise of ultimate challenge.

Sebastian understood the need to look in the eyes of a dangerous quarry: a predator, made mere prey, simply by the prowess of the pursuer. He could even see the sense in revenge for plans spoiled. However, the cause of these deviations had little to do with base human needs, because Jim Moriarty just wasn't human. Somewhere along the way, in his shadowy existence, he'd become something else entirely, something not even a disgraced man like Sebastian, who had murdered his way across six continents, could fully comprehend. For Jim, this was not instinct. It was just painting with blood, violence elevated to art, only for art's sake.

He would not be so apprehensive if he had any idea what was going on-even small details, like why this hospital worker was of any value, might have satisfied him. Sebastian had been tailing her on and off for the better part of two weeks. To say it was boring was an understatement; he'd rarely encountered anyone who led a life less worthy of a round the clock activity report. The surveillance equipment in her apartment worked just fine, but she was so quiet half the time Sebastian thought the microphones were faulty. Not five minutes ago, she'd surprised him totally in the dark flat. He hadn't even heard the lock turn. The woman was a mouse.

But when he'd cornered her, she'd struggled hard, leaving Sebastian no choice but to complete the objective slightly ahead of schedule, administering the colorless liquid in the syringe Jim had sent by courier. She'd gone limp the moment he'd depressed the plunger. Per prior instruction, he'd left an open, half-empty wine bottle out beside a stained glass, and put the telly on low volume for good measure...the perfect alibi for a lonely spinster; the perfect cover for his error. The point of all of this?

Sebastian had no clue. She barely knew Sherlock Holmes, and he had seen quite a bit of their interaction. Obviously she fancied the bloke, but it was a bit pathetic considering his reaction toward her.

The purr of the motor approached him from behind and throwing off his reverie Sebastian spat the butt into the snowbank and got in the car. To his surprise Jim was lounging bonelessly against the plush interior, the bruise-like circles under his eyes illuminated by his phone. He wrinkled his nose childishly and squinted at Sebastian as the taller man woodenly seated himself and shut the door; his sensitive nose presumably catching the scent of cigarette coming in with the wind. Otherwise, Sebastian's employer didn't react to his presence: busy, or pretending to be until it suited him to reveal the purpose of this unexpected check-in. Sebastian, already too warm, took his hat of and waited for the man to speak as the car picked up speed. By and by he was rewarded with Jim casting his phone carelessly onto the seat between them, beginning in that light, false tone Sebastian had come to loathe so well.

"Merry Christmas Mr. Moran!" His eyes and teeth glittered in the dark.

"And to you sir." Sebastian intoned shortly.

"Awww, bah humbug, Mr. Moran. Is someone not having a nice Christmas?" He exaggerated his words as one might do with a toddler. Sebastian clenched his jaw to keep it from grinding.

"Well Mr. Moran, what do you think I've been doing while you've been at work? I've been playing Santa, and I have to say, Mr. Moran, it has me in the Christmas spirit. I managed to find something nice for everyone on my list-by the way, Ms. Adler has gone and got herself a bit killed on a nasty patch of ice, I'm afraid-she really shouldn't wear those shoes..."

"Adler is dead?" Sebastian wondered why Jim hadn't called him to prevent it.

"Well. I say dead, but it's really not so much that. She's at Claridge's. But it gave me a chance to give her a prezzie, one she can share with our Miss Hooper and Mssrs. Holmes, not to mention her troublesome American friends. You should have seen the wrap job I did, just gorgeous: you remember that lovely waitress from the restaurant Monday evening? Of course you do. Her number proved sooo useful, can you believe the luck?"  
So this was what Jim had been doing lately, murmuring and chuckling into his phone.

"Distraction?" Sebastian asked, his voice rough from the nicotine.

"'Course. Our dear detective wasn't fooled for a moment, bless his heart. But he didn't let his brother in on his _wiiiddle_ secret at least, and he was all out of sorts afterward...just like the good boy he is. Speaking of which, how was the scintillating Miss Hooper tonight? Still pining after me?"

"Sleeping, now." The less said, the better. Sebastian was busy trying to piece together Jim's previous words. He often found himself bitterly wondering if Jim expected him to "guess" alongside Sherlock Holmes.

"Everything went well?"

The question was innocently posed, but something in the straightforward manner caught Sebastian's ear.

"It was fine."

"Just fine? I say, Mr. Moran, where are all your usual facts and figures? 'I waited in the closet for one point five hours, etc. etc.?"

He could feel Jim trying to catch his eye, but he met the needling gaze for only a moment before glancing away, out of the window, cursing mentally. He should have just taken the tube back instead of calling a car.

"Jesus Christ. You really know how to suck the fun out of everything, don't you Colonel." Jim muttered. "Would you just relax? You're ruining our Christmas. Didn't you hear me say I got a gift for every good little boy and girl on my list? That includes you. Don't you want your gift?"

A termination of his employment would have been preferable to having to babysit Jim when he was this stoned, and from the direction the car was headed in, he knew that was exactly what he was in for. Sebastian supposed he shouldn't be surprised, as Jim had been keeping himself at nearly catatonic levels lately, only increasing Sebastian's unease. Normally prone to bipolar fits, when his employer self-medicated the violence in him slept; though it made him even more needy and childish than usual, powerless, in a way. He would exist almost totally in his own mind, doing nothing but thinking, though the nuclear passion that fueled his brilliance was drained away by the drug. It didn't bother Jim.

At least he hadn't been doing that shit inside the car-much like Jim's dislike of cigarettes, Sebastian could barely stomach the pungent odor of marijuana. It reminded him of his idiotic youth and the rage-filled memories of his first entrance into the military. The most annoying thing about the habit of Jim's was that it never failed to make him cross that boundary that they observed in accordance with one another. Sebastian didn't want to know about Jim's personal life, if he even had one, and Jim seemed to have no inclination to pry into Sebastian's. Most of the time. But when high, all Jim wanted to do was play at being "mates"-and his favorite "mate" was of course his bodyguard. He would insist on alcohol, and video games, even watching a match, all the while carrying on like they were old university friends.

Sebastian was certain he did it only because he was aware of just how much it discomfited him. But when Jim Moriarty insisted, there was not one damn thing Sebastian could or would do about it.

Jim seemed inclined to say nothing more for the time being, and so Sebastian stared numbly out the window, steeling himself for a night of swilling the shite French beer Jim liked, and staring at a screen for hours on end while his boss droned away about anything except what actually needed to be said. Oh, and gifts. Wonderful.

This all could have been avoided. He was slipping.

If he was noticing, Jim was noticing. And if Jim was noticing, he was a dead man.

The safehouse was sumptuous but sterile, in that ultra-modern style his boss seemed to find soothing. To the taller man, it resembled a military prison from the future; white, glassed-in, metallic trim and furniture, blood red panels bordering the walls. Even the steel and cushioned futon Jim spent most of his time lounging on looked like a cot to Sebastian's eyes. Adding to the futuristic feel, a huge floor to ceiling LED screen was set into the wall in front of the futon, a fantastic mess of gaming systems and cords jumbled in front of it.

The other man shlepped about the brushed steel kitchen for a bit, sloppily guzzling the one beer Sebastian knew he would open and throwing aside his jacket and tie, the bright lighting making him look ill, his skin almost translucent. Moran stood there in his still wet coat and shoes, dripping dirty water all over the pristine white tile. Still Jim said nothing, so he merely waited.

It took the whole beer, and one of those vile cups of pot noodles before Jim finally collapsed onto the futon, looking about twenty years old out of his jacket and tie, cuffs unbuttoned messily. A game was already booting on the screen before Sebastian had his leather gloves off. They played for a half hour in continued silence, for which Sebastian was thankful, but he was doing even worse than usual with the slippery plastic controls and his character kept dying. It didn't help that Jim's taste in games ran in two veins: 'Japanese' and 'incomprehensible'. This one was particularly weird, and he just couldn't seem to get his character to do anything other than an occasional pathetic roundhouse kick. He could see it was beginning to irritate Jim. The next time his player went down, Jim paused the game, staring numbly at the screen.

"You know I'm not good at this." Sebastian grumbled, gesturing with the device in his rough hands.

Jim turned his head, fixed him with a steady gaze, eyes slightly narrowed. His head listed slightly to the side.

"Mr. Moran," the slight man finally said, voice soft. "You've been very tense lately." He blinked slowly, girlish lashes fluttering. "I'm sure I don't know why." He slapped his palm to his face, jaw falling agape.

They stared at each other. Finally Jim broke away from his dramatic pose with a sigh. When he spoke next there was an edge to his bored drawl. "I know, why don't you open your present, Mr. Moran? Since it's so obvious that you want to. Go ahead! You have the questions, I have the answers. Why don't you just ask me what's bouncing around that silly brain of yours."

They stared at one another. Sebastian's brain ticked on, and it seemed that the constant stream of questions in his head had dried up. At least this was Jim showing off, like he used to, not all this secrecy rubbish. He managed to come up with something acceptable for them both. "How long do you mean to draw this out?"

Jim shrugged carelessly. "As long as I'm interested. But it'll be a year at least, and then maybe another after that...who knows. All up to him, really."

"So, the girl is part of the plan."

"Why, Miss Molly Hooper is the plan, my dear." Jim said pleasantly, his thin mouth curling at the end. "My weapon of mass destruction. I think you know what I mean."

"I really don't." Sebastian said, a bit more harshly than he'd meant to in his frustration, but Jim just rolled his bloodshot eyes, letting his head tip back onto the edge of the futon as though he were exhausted.

"But it's so obvious, so simple, almost too simple," Jim whinged plaintively. "I would think a man with such a romantic life story as yours, Mr. Moran, would understand...then again maybe not."

Sebastian ignored the barb, focusing instead in breaking down these new tactical factors.

"So you believe her to be important to Holmes, in some way."

"In the only way that matters, darling." Jim righted his head, waggling his eyebrows. "The sexy way! The dull way. Whichever way you want to look at it, it's the best way."

"He's actually attracted to her?" To Sebastian, who had spent the better part of the last fourteen days observing the extent of their targets' interaction with one another, it was far-fetched. Sherlock Holmes was happy to indicate at every turn how outright repulsed he was by Molly Hooper and her admiration.

"Ohhh, nothing so ordinary as all that," Jim continued smoothly, crossing his legs and inspecting his fingernails. It was the way his boss had been two years ago, when his time had been spent mulling over ingenious schemes to divide whole continents, claiming and conquering each nation's share of thieves and murderers for his own. He was at his best when he played to an audience. "He understands himself to love her, in his own creepy way. She's his little pet mouse in his maze, and he's been shocking her whiskers and making her run in circles, waiting for the right time to give her the BIG reward for being such a good, kind, patient and understanding little pet."

Though he knew doing so put him on very thin ice, Sebastian had to interrupt here with a question that didn't play to Jim's vast ego. "What about John Watson?"

Jim sighed, drummed his fingers, annoyed. "Totally different experiment. Johnny got there too late. Maybe if he'd met the good doctor before his, it would be different, he certainly likes him well enough. But not like his Molly-mummy, who lets him have his way and gives him biscuits and her delicious little heart. You're ignoring the facts. Not getting the picture."

Sebastian shrugged. "According to the transcripts, she fetches him things and he tells her when she has a spot on her face. He lives with John Watson."

Immediately he knew he'd gone too far. Jim was shifting and huffing in that dangerous way that meant he was getting bored. Blinking hard, he rubbed at his head roughly with his hand, leaning into the arm of the couch. "No. No. No" he ground out. "You're not FUCKING getting it!" The controller bounced and shattered on the hard floor, parts and batteries flying everywhere. The acoustics of the room made it quite impressive. Sebastian's eyes flicked around furtively while Jim hunched and keened, gripping his own hair, likely to pull it out.

All was still for a good few moments. Finally he began speaking again, now rubbing his hands mechanically back and forth in tandem over his scalp. "Facts, Mr. Moran, facts. Interesting facts, ones you are completely missing." Those unsightly eyes glared out at Sebastian from around his arm. "Fact one: Molly Hooper is the only woman of childbearing age whose company our Mr. Holmes seeks out on purpose, and on a regular basis. Huh, isn't that kind of weird?" He lifted his head from his hands and his eyes rolled, scathingly. "Fact two: he'd quite obviously broken into her flat at some point, by those little marks 'round the locks-professional tools-hmmm, hmm. Hm hm hm. Fact three: He read her diary, broke the spine well enough in many places that it would lie flat, and snappity snap! took pictures of all the entries she mentioned him in. Fact four: He's told lies, naughty boy, just so he can set up their little dates at the hospital. Fact five: His beloved and esteemed brother didn't just do one of his simple little security checks with Miss Hooper, oh no. He's had her regularly surveilled for three. Fucking. Years." Jim straightened, still looking like a madman with his hair at all angles and his lolling smile. "And while I'd HOPED there, for just a moment, that he was actually just planning on killing her," he chuckled, "unfortunately, this is much more likely.

"But he's so virginal he's nearly subhuman. Never even shagged once. Oh, but I found something about him and another sweet young thing. Something his big brother swept under the rug, something very embarrassing. Wouldn't you know, a girl who worked at his university claimed he stalked her, imagine that. Poor Mycroft had to pay her off to make her go away! And Sherlock, never ever got to finish such a crucial experiment, so of course he was bound to try again sooner or later. Is that not the most pathetic thing you've ever heard?" His employer crowed. "But he hasn't finished his little test, because he was waiting for me, Mr. Moran. He knew I would come out and say 'hello!' eventually, and he couldn't risk making any of his weaknesses too obvious. He found an excellent decoy in Dr. Watson, someone strong and brave who can fend for themselves. Never corrected anyone's assumptions, encouraged them even! All to try and lead me away from her." Jim chuckled, but then his expression melted into one of contempt. "He underestimated me, insulted me by not wanting me to play. So we're taking his little game out of his hands."

Understanding was dawning on Sebastian. It was certainly consistent with Holmes' abstract personality, bringing things into a fuzzy alignment. "That's why you slept with her. To get to him."

"Actually, she made the first move. I just thought, 'what the hell'. Sweeten the deal, as it were. And it gave me an idea. A really, really good idea, Mr. Moran. Possibly my best." He bared his teeth happily. "Like me, there's nothing that cowboy wouldn't be prepared to do to get his way. He put time into it. Effort. Study. And when he realizes he was just another rodent in the maze, I will be there to see the look on his face."

"And the woman?" Sebastian pressed quietly.

"Oh, I'll be there to see the look on his face for that, too. When she ruins him, he will have been brought down to the level I need him at, Mr. Moran. A man with nothing left to lose, a man who isn't a man at all." Jim reclined, easy and cool again. "What do you think?"  
Sebastian was amazed, and said as much. "But I have more questions. What about the drugs? How do we...go about this?"

"Oh, yeah, that." Jim scratched his nose, ruining his elegant air. "A cute little something from Ms. Adler-another part of our bargain-I modified her recipe, gave it a little extra kick. Tonight was only the second dose." Jim held up two fingers. "Now, our little lamb won't feel much until the third dose, and after that, things will get very, very sad and scary for her, I'm afraid. Once we prick her the fourth time, I'm afraid Molly Hooper will be no more, and everyone in the kingdom will cry tears for the lost, kind little child, who everyone believes to be dead..." Jim put his finger to his lips, whispering. "But she's really only sleeping an enchanted sleep. Sound familiar?"

A memory, from a time in his life that was so alien to him now he was surprised he remembered at all, tickled at the back of Sebastian's mind. Jim's words formed memories of his mother; her dark hair, the perfect folds of her sari draping over her round belly as she sat on the edge of his bed, her voice in a lilting cadence, reading. "Strangely enough, it does," he murmured, transported by the most distinct memory of his mother he'd had in years. "There was a...book my father had. _One Thousand and One Nights_. I used to read it as a kid."

"Oh there's lots of versions. All of them would be quite entertaining to reenact, but time is a factor, so we'll just have to give him the gist, I suppose. But our Molly will wake to find things very different from when she went to sleep, and we'll have to soothe her as best we can, Mr. Moran. You'll get to know each other quite well, trust me, she's a lovely girl once you get over the stuttering."

The assassin had no idea how to respond to that. "You intend to keep her under lock and key for a year?"

"Under lock and key? Oh no, I'm not a barbarian." Jim said coyly. "She'll be happy to be there, to stay with us. I can promise you, she'll be the perfect little hostage, living in the lap of luxury itself. And if she isn't..." He mimicked flicking a hypodermic with his finger. "We'll calm her down. After all, you're practically a doctor, she'll trust you."

Sebastian couldn't believe what he was hearing. This was different, far different than anything Jim had ever asked of him. Before it had just been puzzles; dominoes he had to set up for Sherlock Holmes to knock down. But this...

"You look worried, Mr. Moran. Do you think you might not be able to handle Miss Hooper? Maybe you accidentally met the tiger tonight, lurking in our little mouse? By the way, you have a scratch on your neck."

Sebastian's chest compressed in on itself, threatening to choke his beating heart. Slowly he reached his hand up to where Jim was indicating on his own neck with a circling finger. There was a slight sting where he pressed his palm.

"Oh, don't worry, it's not bleeding. Or is it?" Jim peered, leaning close. "Oh, no, wait-that's just red nail varnish."

Sebastian watched him out of the corner of his eye as he retreated, thoughtfully tapping his chin. "Let's see, let's think-who was wearing red nail varnish and lipstick earlier tonight?! Well, I can think of two ladies I saw. And I knoooow you saw one of those ladies yourself tonight..." His eyes glittered with the malice Sebastian had been dreading all along, and he knew the moment of truth had come.

"She surprised me." Sebastian's voice was low.

Jim sprung from the futon like a crazed chimp, face immediately beet red, veins and tendons strained to popping. "OH! OH! SURPRISED YOU, WAS IT?! You fucking shit." His eyes rolling in apoplectic fury, he spat his words like a viper, spittle flying, and limbs jerking erratically. Sebastian's fist tightened around his beer. "I give you EASY SHIT, you cunt, and you fuck it all up. You fuck UP MY IDEAS."

There was a secure lift with a keypad at the back of the flat. The sniper focused on remembering the keypad code, but his eyes never once left Jim as he proceeded to throw the worst temper tantrum Sebastian had seen in years. Another intense crash echoed around the room as the X-Box in front of the TV made contact with his employer's foot, sending the device flying a few feet before landing and shattering cacophonously, the tray and a few circuit boards springing out widely.

"I administered the serum." Sebastian said levelly, trying to keep him from breaking anything more. "She'll never know."

"That makes it all better, doesn't it?" Jim lowered his voice to a soft, whisper of sound. "She'll never know, she'll never know," he mimicked in falsetto. Then he whirled away to face the screen, squared his shoulders, and became a statue.

Silence again. Sebastian just stared.

"This is going to happen, Mr. Moran," Jim said, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation as though it had never stopped, still facing directly away, looking ridiculous with his short stature and partially untucked shirt. He sounded almost tired. "And it will be glorious, I promise you. Though if you want to leave, I'd let you."

Sebastian mulled that over. It seemed like a relatively simple offer, on the face of it, but nothing with Jim was ever as one-dimensional as it seemed.

Jim was looking at him now, over his shoulder, considering Sebastian but not fully turning around. He sighed. "You're just not impressed with my gift, are you Mr. Moran. Pity."  
Sebastian said nothing, his hands slackening around the beer again. "Kidnap always tends to be more trouble than it's worth."

"Oh, but this is the best kind. The kind with a willing captive." Jim turned fully at last, another easy grin on his face, looking far more normal than he should for someone so sinister. "And speaking of willing captives, I plan on paying dear Brother Mycroft a visit, soon. And then, we'll have what we need to really start, Mr. Moran. Then I'll have what I need."

* * *

Molly's New Year resolution was failing miserably straight out of the gate. Since Christmas, she had been trying her best to avoid Sherlock, but he made it increasingly difficult, calling her in on New Year's Day, which was supposed to be her time off for doing both shifts on Christmas. He seemed slightly discomfited by his bad behavior at the party, but he was still short with her as he x-rayed some woman's phone, torturing her with obtuse responses when she hesitatingly asked if it was his girlfriend's. It was strange to think of Sherlock even around other women, much less going on dates with them and...well, looking at them naked apparently. She'd barely been able to be around men after Jim-the idea that Sherlock could be seeing someone made her feel rather bruised. And yes, she admitted she was very silly, but he didn't need to comment on it, did he? Later on he even chastised her for standing too close, and then proceeded to make her feel very underfoot, crowded her at the sink and her own desk, rendering her hardly able to breathe under his suffocating shadow as he brusquely rifled through things he needed on shelves and in drawers. Nothing had changed, on either of their ends, and Molly remained confused and somewhat angry with herself. It didn't help that she hadn't been sleeping well since Christmas.

In the months since Jim, she had buried all thoughts of the time they had spent together with a vengeance. The happiness she had felt, thinking he was a regular man who was interested in her; all the things she had tried to lock away after she found out what he was: She had done a good job forgetting it. Now it seemed the memories were insistent on surfacing, coming to her when least expected. They were odd glimpses into what seemed like an alternate universe. It was the gentleness he had exhibited then that now plagued her the most; in the way he'd scratched Toby under the chin, the excellent tea he brewed, that Beatles song he had hummed as they sat on the park bench eating egg rolls.

Thinking about those things made her feel sick, and strangely unclean. She scrubbed her flat from top to bottom and then again bottom to top, but it didn't help much.  
The only consolation was that he would not be coming back-not for her at least. It was between him and Sherlock. That was what she told herself when she woke up at night lying in a puddle of cold sweat, at least.

He was not coming back.

April Fool's Day saw Molly at work in the mortuary, finishing up one of her superior's post-mortem reports. She usually ended up with this task as everyone else was quick to dash as soon as lunch rolled around. Molly sighed, knowing it would be another late, last minute affair in the canteen for her.

That's when she heard something, something very faint. It sounded like a soft, whistling noise, or a humming, maybe like someone's phone, but it was coming from the ground floor above, or perhaps outside, but the heavy cement and steel construction of the morgue muffled it. Molly paused her pen and turned off her tape recorder, listening.

It grew louder, more continuous. Standing, she walked over to the stairwell and pushed open the security door. Noise flooded down the vertical corridor to her from the floors above.

Sirens. Lots of them. For a moment she stood there, listening to the cacophony bounce around, grow even louder. It sounded like every emergency vehicle in London was turned on!

Someone walked over her grave. Dark intuition prickled the nape of her neck, and she was suddenly aware she was very much alone, down in the basement. She let the door close and fairly fled to her desk.

Slapping open and booting her work laptop, she checked first the BBC, then Sherlock's blog, then John's, then the BBC again. So far, no one had reported anything, no bombings or sightings of Jim, but her heart was still racing. As the muffled sound began to fade, she snatched up her phone and desperately texted someone who was sure to know, and sure to give a straight answer.

By the time Greg managed to get back to her, everyone knew. Meena had pulled her into the deserted nurse's station the moment she had surfaced from below to warn her. Every telly on the upper floor was tuned in to the news, and staff and students nudged one another or stared as she passed.

"You'd better get ready. If anyone's thick enough to ask, just tell them the truth: He weren't your boyfriend, you only went on three dates with him."

"Everyone knows what that means, Meena!" Molly hissed, lifting her head from between her knees. "Everyone KNOWS!"

Meena sighed.

Molly's mobile rang.

Greg sounded positively haggard over the phone. He kept his voice low, and Molly cupped her mobile protectively to her ear, understanding this was in confidence. "Sherlock just left. Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes-is it true? Have you got him?" She tried to keep her voice down, though it was obvious Meena could hear every word by the way she sat on the edge of her chair.

"Yeah. We've got him in custody, Molly."

Relief dawned on her and she pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh thank goodness," she breathed. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but I was freaking out there a bit. I just..." She lowered her voice further. "I knew it was him."

"Did he send you anything? Contact you in any way?" he asked, tone sharpening.

"No, nothing like that."

"That's good." He seemed as relieved as her. A silence stretched over the line and Molly suddenly felt awkward, bothering him for no real reason other than to get an inside scoop. "I'm really sorry to bother you," she repeated, more empathetically. "I was just being silly. You must be awfully busy."

"No! I mean, yes, its been a hell of a morning, but I'm glad to hear you're safe. Don't hesitate to call me if you need me. If you notice anything at all that might be odd."

"Thank you Greg," she said faintly, warmed and surprised by his concern. "I-I will. I promise."

"Good. Er-Molly-I know this isn't exactly the best time, and it might take ages to unbury myself from all this bloody paperwork, but-I'd like to ask you out to lunch sometime. In an unofficial capacity. And before you ask, yes, Sherlock was right about that...thing on Christmas. With my wife. We're not together."

"Oh! Oh." Molly struggled to close her mouth, struggled to not look at Meena who was eagerly nodding, gesturing with her hands. "I-yes! Yes, I'd love to."

"Excellent." She could almost see his winning grin. "Thank you. You've made the day a bit more bearable."

"Aha-well, glad to help." She felt quite lightheaded and was almost unable to repress a giggle.

"Have a good one, Mol."

"You too. Chin up!" She ended the call, ignoring Meena's expectant look. "I've got to get back down to the mortuary," Molly cried, feeling herself flush, and dashed away before her friend could say another word.

The days leading up to Jim's trial were arduous, with Jim's face peering sinisterly at her from every screen and news stand. How had he ever seemed so warm, so handsome? Molly shuddered, shouldering her purse and turning away. Sherlock and Dr. Watson had been called to testify, and nerves ate away at Molly that she would be called in too-but what could they need her for when they had Sherlock? Thankfully, there had been no contact from anyone, despite her name being connected to Jim's so prominently online in John Watson's blog article. Molly wondered at that, but she was being scrutinized too closely by her colleagues every day at work to think about it much. At least it would be over soon, and for good. She followed the trial on the telly, clutching Toby to her in the corner of the sofa, watching the same footage roll over and over, of Sherlock and John leaving 221b and various other places, and Jim being shepherded about by dozens of police as the news anchors wondered over the entire situation with something akin to politely puzzled amusement. She supposed it was alright for some: Jim wasn't being connected to any deaths for this trial, after all-just the burglaries for which he'd been caught. They were free to smirk and wonder at the transcript of Sherlock's testimony without guilt.

The next day she slept in again, a bad habit that had been forming on her days off, and hadn't even got to turning on the telly before Greg was calling. Molly, smiling, answered-but it was clear lunch was not on his mind.

"Are you home? Good. Lock your door. Do not open it until I get there."

"What's going on?" Her voice sounded very thin and far away even to her.

"They let the bastard go. Lock the door. I'll be there in an hour." The line went dead.

The news told her the same story. Disbelief echoed on every side: Three insurmountable crimes, committed in broad daylight, thrown out by a jury against the recommendation of the judge. Greg arrived looking grave, and more than a little angry.

"He knew it all along. Never flinched once." He said with finality once he had finished relating to her the particulars of the day, hands flexing round the coffee cup she had pushed into his hands. "That son of a bitch must have fingered the jury. Sorry, Molly."  
"Oh, no, that's okay. What does it mean?" Molly asked. "Why would he do all this-the crimes, and getting caught and everything?"

"I don't know. All I know is that it has to do with Sherlock, with the games they play." He spat the word, running his hand over the back of his head distractedly. "But I do know there's a very good probability Moriarty could try to involve you again, Molly. I don't mean to scare you," he quickly said as she paled. "But we should take precautions. For your safety."

"What about Sherlock? And Dr. Watson?" she asked.

"I have someone at Baker Street already, but they should be able to protect themselves. John was in the army, anyway-are you alright?"

Molly wasn't sure. A strong wave of dizziness passed over her, unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She put a hand to her face, and it felt numb, warm. She'd never fainted before in her life, she couldn't start now, in front of Greg.

"I'm okay. Just...Overwhelmed." Molly sat straighter, breathed deeper, and felt marginally better. Greg put a hand on her shoulder and the lab tech managed a shaky smile.

"Um...What should we do?"

"I can have someone posted here at your place, and at Bart's." He seemed firm, but she shrank back, hesitating.

"Do...do you think he will come here?"

Molly watched as Lestrade hesitated, his brow furrowing slightly.

"I really don't know. I don't think so-it's just a precaution though, Mol, to give you some peace of mind."

Though she was as terrified of Jim as ever (he had shown up in a nightmare or three this week), Molly wasn't sure. She couldn't put Greg out like that, couldn't be the damsel who wasn't even in real distress. Why should Jim concern himself with her? Why should she be so worried? Why would he come back? He had just used her to get to Sherlock.

"Sherlock doesn't think he's after me, does he?"

Greg looked slightly affronted at the mention of the consulting detective's name. "Not that I know of-he's, uh, never mentioned it, at least."

"Don't you think he would if he thought Jim-er, Moriarty was going to be after me."  
"I don't know, Molly," he said with a gruff, nonplused laugh. "You know what Sherlock's like."

Molly looked away and Greg swore quietly at the stricken look on her face. "I didn't mean it that way," he leaned forward. "I'm sure Sherlock would warn us if he thought you were in any danger-"

"That's alright Greg." Molly placed her hand over his on his knee, patting it awkwardly, trying to be reassuring. "I mean, I think I'll be just fine-I've kept my eyes peeled, and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary since that time a year ago. Nothing to suggest anything strange at all! I could text you though," she continued in a rush, forcing herself to meet his eyes even though she could feel her face heating up. She pulled her hand away to quickly tuck hair behind her ear. "If I notice something."

Greg glanced down at his hand with a look of slight surprise and then back at her, flashing her a reluctant, but very attractive smile. "Well Molly, you've never steered me wrong before. Maybe you should try your hand at my job."

"Oh, no thanks. I'd probably burst into flames out in the sun with normal people." She laughed nervously and he chortled politely. She really had to stop telling jokes, she thought miserably.

Greg continued to text her regularly, always managing a kind word. Molly was grateful, though a little hesitant. There could be no safer choice than a detective inspector of Scotland Yard, and Sherlock had been more absent than usual lately (not that he would be interested or she would ever dream of him being so now), but the constant shadow of her most recent attempts at romance continued to loom, and she couldn't help but secretly feel that Greg was making a terrible mistake, asking her out. And at the rate things had been going, they would never go to lunch-the kidnappings of an important ambassador's children saw to that. When he was finally able to pull himself away from the Yard an hour for their date, she was stopped in her tracks on her way out of the door by the tall, arresting presence of Sherlock Holmes, turning up at last just to ruin her day.

* * *

Kitty's palms were sweaty again, but she dared not fidget under the scrutiny of the man seated across from her, though she longed to dry them on her flannel bottoms. He would see it through the translucent plastic table at which they were seated. The family resemblance was clear, she thought sourly; the Holmes men seemed to base their whole lives around being absolute pricks, and Mycroft Holmes was obviously the biggest-or littlest berk of the litter. Since entering this stupid concrete room all he had done was stare, stonily, across the plexiglass table at her. Kitty had grown bored two hours ago when she had first been brought in here-now she was back to defensive tactics, her arms folded protectively over her chest, her back ramrod straight and her expression as haughty as she could make it as she forced herself to study him.

He himself was all entitlement, with a receding hairline, paunchy tall build, pointed nose and a perpetual expression that suggested it had smelled something bad. His suit would feed her for a year, his watch would pay her rent for five. People actually lived this way.

Yes, this was certainly the man she had been warned about: Some rich, government arse, brilliant and ruthless and utterly uncaring, just like his brother. When Rich first told her about Mycroft Holmes, she had salivated at the possibilities. This was journalism, uncovering the dirty deeds and crimes of politicians and aristocrats and exposing them for what they were, giving people the truths they really needed to hear.

But Rich had been nervous, warning her against publishing anything about the elder brother. "He could do more harm than you can imagine," he'd told her when she'd asked why. He'd been right. Kitty had known immediately what was happening when the intimidating men dressed in identical dark suits rang her bell. Off she went; firmly, politely directed into the back of a black car in her pajamas. Kitty was shocked they hadn't put a burlap sack over her head and cable-tied her hands. Between that, and Rich's disappearance, it was obvious to her that England was indeed, doomed, and this was probably the man responsible for it all. She glared back into that unmoving, superior face, and repeated over and over to herself in her mind that she could do this. That somehow, she would find a way through this situation.

It was twenty minutes before he spoke.

"Do you know what libel is, Miss Riley?" His tone was ice water, his eyes just as cold. More traits shared with his brother.

She crossed her legs, folded her arms. "Do you know what kidnap is, Mr. Holmes? Or maybe we should try murder on for size." She countered as coolly as she could, trying to ignore the ache in her chest when she thought of Rich possibly being dead.

He stared at her for another long moment, unfazed, then reached for the familiar edition he had neatly placed in the corner of the table. "This is rather damning, Miss Riley. Isn't it?"

She was quick with her response to hide her anger. "Perhaps for you and your brother. I believe it isn't illegal to exercise my right of press." She had to keep control over herself. She was a journalist.

"When it is all about one person, all untrue, and causes the individual to commit suicide?" He tilted his head to one side, still staring her down.

Now her ire was building to critical levels. "First of all, it is all true: which, if you really are Sherlock Holmes' brother, you already know. You've always known, haven't you? Covered for him for years, all those drug charges dropped and locked away by you and the Met. What sort of other things about your brother have you smoothed over, Mr. Holmes, for the sake of your prestige?"

The man's jaw ticked, and she smirked inwardly, triumphant. "And what about Richard?" Kitty pressed on, leaning across the table. "Where is he? Whatever's happened to him, I know you're responsible, I want him back!"

"There's no need for dramatics, madam." Mycroft Holmes cut in sharply. "I think we're both perfectly aware that Richard Brook does not exist."

"Don't play with me," she hissed, outraged. "You know exactly who I am talking about."

"Yes, I know who you are talking about. But do you? You seem to be under the delusion, Miss Riley, that you knew this man, this Richard Brook, when in actuality you spent very little time in his company. Smelling money, you blindly accepted what he had told you, thus breaking the fundamental values of good journalism. You failed to check your facts. And now, thanks to you and your...paramour...you have found yourself here." He gestured around him lightly. "A place for liars and murderers."

"I am not a liar," she ground out around the tears now slipping downward. "I met your poor, dead brother Mr. Holmes. I know what he was truly like, and now everyone knows. You couldn't cover this one up, could you? He ran from the police, he came into my home to harass Rich, he drove him off and now he's missing. Sherlock Holmes was a guilty man who decided to take the coward's way out before he could stand trial for his crimes. So don't you dare threaten me, Mr. Holmes."

Kitty could immediately see she'd struck a nerve; Mycroft Holmes' upper lip curled in that same way Sherlock Holmes' had in the public toilet at the Old Bailey, signaling all the disgust one could convey with such a simple gesture. She felt a savage pleasure at drawing blood.

"I suppose you believe it all to be another admission of his supposed guilt?" the man inquired smoothly.

"Well you tell me, sir, or maybe we should ask the police. They know Sherlock Holmes is a criminal. And you have the audacity to accuse Rich. Maybe the police should look into that, too?" A big fat bluff-she doubted they would be giving her a phone call here.

"They already are." He seemed oddly thoughtful now, his eyes on her speculating, folding his hands before him over the newspaper and leaning forward. "This Richard Brook. Who were his parents, where was he from? Surely he provided you with a birth certificate as proof of his identity; or perhaps his National Insurance number? His medical records? These are the things the police will look for in their investigation of my brother's supposedly fraudulent activities. But they won't find these crucial items, will they, Miss Riley? No. Because they, like Rich Brook, never existed. Such records could easily be falsified with even modest resources, put in place for Sherlock's detractors to find. Curious then, that they were not. And just as we found nothing, neither will the police. Richard Brook has vanished, just as he meant to all along."

She couldn't help but jump to her feet, her chair clattering backward noisily on the concrete, her face flushed with anger and shining with tears. "You-you've done something, you took them! Rich is an ill, ruined man, and you and your...brother..." Here she could not go on, a bubble of misery rising into her mouth and cutting off her words and breathing, and before she could swallow it, it escaped her in a pathetic, whimpering little sob. Clapping a hand over her mouth she whirled away, fighting the urge to sob openly with every last bit of willpower in her. Behind her, there was silence until he cleared his throat delicately, and Kitty heard the door open. The loud clacking of high heels crossed the room behind her, in and out, and then the door closed again, entombing her once again in this nightmare. She stayed where she was, still worried she would lose her composure.

"Miss Riley," That voice had softened considerably in tone. "I do believe that you are truthful, when you say you believed Richard Brook to be who he said he was. When the police question you, they may reach a similar conclusion. But there is no getting around the fact that you ultimately slandered my brother on hearsay. Imagine for a moment how it will look to a judge, a court of your peers. I can help you avoid that, Miss Riley. In return, I am in need of your help."

Her loud laugh cracked, and she thought she must look just like a crazy woman, in rumpled and unwashed clothes with her hair completely askew, her eyes red with crying. "Help? You've got a very funny way of asking for help, kidnapping me from my home, and, and threatening me-two hours I've sat in here! I could sue you, expose you!"  
"I think we both are aware any suit you brought against me would be dismissed, and I doubt you would want a second libel charge against you," he intoned serenely. "It will be difficult for even I to convince anyone you are innocent then."

She was trapped. It was true, there would probably be an investigation in response to a public suicide. The Sun, used to this sort of thing, would throw her under the bus in an instant if the slightest thing were found to be wrong. And here was a man who could make all these terrifying things come true and more.

"Why would you help me?" she whispered, still keeping her distance, her arms once again around herself. "Why should I trust you?"

He lowered his chin toward his chest, fingers steepled in thought. Something like contrition furrowed his brow. "I have a theory, Miss Riley. One that holds you and I, as, in a way, alike."

She blinked, feeling stupid. There must have been a disconnect somewhere. "Alike?"

"Yes-more alike than you can now imagine." The tips of his fingers separated slightly, then came back together as though magnetically attracted. A small, bitter smile formed on his face as he glanced toward her. "You must think I'm a pompous and self-important old fool, who is everything that is wrong with a modern young woman's idea of the world."

Kitty really had no idea how to respond to that. She shuffled her feet and rubbed her wet palms together behind her back.

"I can hardly begrudge you your disgust. I can admit that I have made mistakes...with regard to Sherlock." He said the name softly. "Many mistakes. I had the usual familial concerns, perhaps, but it is not enough of a reason to want him to change as I did. Sherlock was who he was. As I am who I am. And you, Miss Riley, are who you are."

"I don't understand." Kitty said, frowning.

Mycroft Holmes looked down at the table, and Kitty noticed there was now a black binder sitting before him, beside the newspaper. The woman with the heels must have brought it in.

"You said you'd met my brother. I trust it was not a pleasant experience for you." He waited while Kitty cast about for her faculties.

"No," she said at last, rather dully. The memory of it still stung.

"Of course then you are familiar with the little trick he often used to get a rise out of people. He must have been very insulting. I apologize."

She snorted, the dry tears on her face making it feel tight and stretched, and realized she felt worn to the bone. "Why should you apologize?" She slid wearily back into the chair, which had been mysteriously righted. "It's not like you made him do it."

"No," he agreed, "but I taught him how. How to take the information his brilliant mind collected and focus it, process it. I wanted to give him comfort, but it became his obsession and led him further from coping with life, gave him even more difficulty. But from it he attained a good deal of happiness.

"You wonder why I am telling you this. I know you have not eaten in a day and a half, Miss Riley. That you have wept this past week, worried over a man you loved. That you have been trying to contract the police to try and find that man, with no luck, but ignored the three calls from your estranged father. With the money you made from the Sun you managed to pay the backrent on your flat, but you still have an outstanding bill for the electric. All of these details I did not have to research because I read them, in your face, your clothing, the condition of your slippers and the way you stand; as did my brother. And so did another man, who had the powers of focus and observation to do so." This time he slid the black binder toward her, not breaking eye contact.

Kitty looked at it, then at him again.

"Open it, please," he bade her firmly, quietly.

Her heart was like a bass drum in her chest, the beats of it growing stronger, closer together as she contemplated the binder, reached hesitantly for it. The same premonition that had been bothering her all week surged forward again.

She lifted the cover. An official-looking document in a plastic sleeve stared back at her, stamped and sealed.

It was a certificate of death, according to the scripted title. The name upon it was not unfamiliar to her in the least. Somewhere, Mycroft Holmes was still talking.

"As he looked at you, so he also looked at me. He saw immediately where I was weak, and that he could use me for his own ends without my even knowing it. That is what people like us see, Miss Riley. What Sherlock and James Moriarty saw, all around them. Means to an end."

A chill seemed to pass through Kitty's thin flannels and she folded in on herself, hurting somewhere deep in her very bones. What he was saying contradicted everything she knew. It had to be rubbish. But sitting there in that cold room and listening to his quiet voice in the silence with that official paper in front of her, Kitty saw a bigger picture. It didn't matter if it was all lies. If this man said it, it would become truth. And there was not a damn thing she could do about it. Rich was dead.

"I'm very sorry, Miss Riley. I know you had feelings for him."

"Feelings!" she gasped, another morbid laugh pulling free. "Feelings."

Holmes tugged something out of his breast pocket and set it on the table between them above the binder, though she didn't get a good look at it until he drew his hand away. It was a dark touchscreen phone in a black case. Kitty would have recognized the striking and simple design of a brand new Apple product miles away. She stared at it, uncomprehending.

He was still watching her in that close way. "Have you ever seen this before, Miss Riley?"

She shook her head.

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "You never observed Richard Brook to use it?

She blinked. "He didn't have a mobile."

He pushed it toward her further, just like the binder. Glancing at him, Kitty touched the dark screen with her fingers, turning it the right way round, toward her. She clicked the button at the bottom.

A picture lit up the screen. It was bright and vivid, taken in a place with a good deal of sunlight.

"Have you ever seen this room before?"

* * *

Bleep!

Sally jerked, coming out of the deep, dark well she'd somehow stumbled into while penning line after line of the report that just. Would. Not. Come together. She raised her head blearily and stared around the day-bright office, hardly able to move  
her head side to side. With a groan, she unstuck her arms from the desk and painfully unfolded them, shaking and clenching her left hand with a hiss as she tried to get some feeling back into it. Good thing the blinds were closed. The day (or was it night now?) continued outside the door, noisy and full as ever, and Sally pushed herself back into her chair with a small moan of discomfort and exhaustion.

Bleep!

Her head jerked around, toward the noise. Close, very close. Right there, at the corner of her desk, in fact. That was what had woken her up.

She moved aside a few papers, and there was the evidence bag with his phone in it. A moment passed, and Sally simply stared hard, papers still held aloft in disbelief.

Bleep!

The papers fluttered to the floor as Sally fumbled the slippery plastic bag, the slender phone tumbling around inside, before securing her hand around it, bringing the screen into view.

Nothing. It was black. There were no incoming calls, or texts: It was just how it had been since they had started trying to unlock the Freak's phone, dark and unresponsive, no matter how many times she tapped on the home button.

Bleep!

Sally's eyes shot wide, her pupils contracting as the pixels flashed white suddenly; an image burning her retinas. She gasped, but before she could register anything at all about it, it was gone, and the phone went still and black once more. The policewoman sat frozen, in shock. What the hell had that been?!

The phone was non-responsive again. Sally stared at it, her head spinning, all traces of sleep gone, and wondered if it would repeat the cycle. If so, she had to act fast.

She pulled her own Blackberry off her belt clumsily with one hand, and held down the button necessary to bring up the camera. It wasn't very hi-res, but it would have to do-just in case it stopped...

With baited breath, she waited, holding the plastic of the baggie tight against the screen so that the image would be clear. The office was quiet. The mail man walked past. Someone coughed nearby, an awful hacking sound left over from the winter. Sally sat tensely, poised in her chair.

Bleep!

Click!

She exhaled in a whoosh, a triumphant smile straightening the sleep lines from her face as she regarded the small screen of her phone. She'd got it.

* * *

Molly stared blankly at the contents of her locker. There wasn't much, really; her book-bag, some memos accumulated on the top shelf which she promptly binned, and a single newspaper clipping, which she hesitated over before taking it down. Sherlock's odd, pale features peering from under that dreadful cap had been there to greet Molly every time she had started and finished a shift, for what seemed like forever. No matter what mood she had been in in relation to Sherlock, it had given her a laugh. Right up to Saturday evening. They had still been cleaning the blood off the pavement when she left. In the week since, she had opened the locker with dread and avoided it with her eyes. It was strange to think it had just been a few months since it was taken, already starting to yellow at the edges. She peeled the tape from the metal surface and carefully folded it behind the clipping it in her bag, trying to ignore Meena's anxious face.

She shut the metal door for the last time.

"Um..." Meena fidgeted at her elbow. "Maybe I shouldn't let you be alone tonight."

Molly tried to muster some enthusiasm for her friend. "I'm fine. I just need to go home and sleep." She contemplated the box of things she had accumulated on the bench from around the office-a few mugs, one of which Sherlock had always used, a few pictures in frames of her dad and mother, office supplies, and a few spare cardigans and trousers.

She really should have done this earlier, but she couldn't afford to look suspicious.

"But not like, go home an' sleep forever though, right?" Meena's voice was slightly panicked and Molly wondered vaguely how awful she must look to make the petite nurse go there. She hadn't shed a tear, but she had become sick immediately following the meeting in which she was officially censured and sacked. Knowing it was coming didn't help at all, it turned out.

"I'm sad, not suicidal." Molly assured her friend. "It's just a job, after all."

Mike had made a gallant effort to argue in her favor, but their boss countered that it wasn't his decision to make: the Board of Trustees had spoken. Molly hadn't said a word, she was being wracked with horrible visions of the police streaming into the room to arrest her. But nothing happened. After all, she and Sherlock had made it so that all she had to do was falsify some paperwork that day. At first glance it wouldn't look suspicious, but that was because they had taken care of most of the details the night before, but it would put another strike on Molly's record and put her under enough censure that she would either be suspended or fired outright-either would work, according to Sherlock. It looked like it would be the latter. Apparently the doctored paperwork, compounded by the multiple recorded instances of misconduct in accordance with her assistance to Sherlock (mostly in the form of letting him waltz off with hospital property and medical waste), was enough for the board, who wanted to sweep the whole incident under the rug as soon as possible.

It did sound rather gruesome, coming from the astonished mouth of her boss, and Molly was once again painfully reminded that normal people did not do those sorts of things for love.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Molly?" The man looked aggrieved, as though he were in disbelief and considered her actions a personal affront. She found herself at a loss, her stomach already churning unpleasantly. She knew if she opened her mouth, her lunch would come out instead of words.

Mike's expression was thunderous as he leaned across her, prepared to do all her talking. "She didn't do anything wrong in the least, and you know it. He had full access. His brother set it up with you, so spare her the bollocks George."

"What am I supposed to do here, Mike? Where is his brother now?! The man, who it turns out is a wanted criminal, jumped off the goddamned roof of this very building! You've seen those jackals out there, of course we've come under official review, it was inevitable! You and I are both very lucky we aren't also in the line of fire."

Mike pursed his lips and breathed in hard in a way that signaled he was very displeased indeed. "That's all rubbish and you know it. We've all seen him, even you George, we all knew he was brilliant and capable of doing what he did, so leave off badgering the poor woman. She's just lost a very dear friend, and now you're taking away her job. She doesn't have to explain herself in the least." And with that, the portly man stood, color high, and opened the door. Molly crawled out of her chair and managed to stagger past him into the corridor and straight across to the nearest ladies', queasy, mortified, and relieved that it was over at last and she could go home.

Mike brought Meena and together they had calmed her down, got her to eat and drink something before helping her collect her possessions. The whole time Molly remained almost silent, her face wan and composed, but her mind whirling with possibilities. It was possible they would look further into the whole thing. Mycroft could probably only protect her to a certain extent. If someone started to suspect, it was not only Molly who would be in danger, Sherlock would as well. Things had been altered subtly in the paperwork; she had worked hard to make it look as though she had just done an abysmal job in her grief. Her co-workers who had tried to help her in those flickering, half-remembered moments would attest to that. But it was very difficult to substitute the body of a man with a substantial criminal record on file somewhere. And there were the students she'd personally bribed, too...

She just wanted to go home. Even if her flat barely resembled any kind of familiar refuge any longer, she wanted to be there with her cat, in her bed, which at least was still hers, and forget for a few hours that her life was crashing down around her ears.

Meena still hadn't given up. "Are you sure? We could go down the pub, or we could sit at mine an' have a bottle of wine while Samir is gone."  
For a moment Molly wanted to say yes; then she remembered that it would be impossible. There were rules now, and she had to follow them for her own safety and the safety of everyone around her.

"Maybe another time...I just want to get in the bath with a book tonight, you know?"

Meena paled, and Molly sighed and shook her head.

"Seriously, I'm not going to kill myself. Please, Meena, forget it."

"Alright." The younger woman pursed her lips. "But at least let me take the box home in my car and bring it to you tomorrow. Or better yet, let me drive you home!"

"Er-no, really, I need the time going home to clear my head a bit, I think. And this isn't too heavy." She hefted it, awkwardly embracing the oblong box.

"You're sure?" But Molly was already walking away.

"I'll ring you tomorrow!" she called over her shoulder, using the box to nudge the heavy doors open.

Outside in the night it was cool and breezy, and the shadows thrown by the dramatic lighting of the old gothic facades of the building stretched long down onto the pavement, which was rather deserted on a Monday this close to the end of term. The former lab tech made her way slowly toward St. Paul's, her mind occupied again with worries and fears, her arms and gait hampered by her possessions.

Sherlock's sprain was almost completely healed, if his daily tramping about the house was anything to go by. He'd taken to pacing back and forth lately, writing on and tacking things to the faded wallpaper in diagrams that spread all over the flat. To Molly, it looked like random fits of Nashian paranoia-what he wrote wasn't even words, as far as she could tell. In the seven days they had been living together, she was already long past trying to get him to stop doing such things. It only led to glaring and sulking and unending cold silence. Sherlock was a master sulker. He had perfected everything about the process from preliminary righteous anger all the way down through blatant self-abuse, refusing food and sleep but not really working, either. And he still was not above a little false apology or flattery to get his way in the end. She suspected most of this bad behavior was due to the unsatisfactory results he was getting in doing-whatever it was that he was doing. Molly had seen him run himself spare until the conclusion of a case many times, but all the instances before had solid solutions to arrive at in a timely manner. By the number of photographs of tacked to her walls, she doubted these answers would be swift in coming. She knew he planned to leave at some point, and Molly wasn't sure if she would be glad or terrified to see him go.

Mostly she fretted that there was something he wasn't telling her, some reason, beyond his minor injury (that sort of thing had never stopped him before) that was keeping him in London, in her flat, though he made it clear it irritated him endlessly. To her it looked like hesitation; he seemed to be hovering between decisions only he could comprehend.  
Only, that had never happened before. There was always a next step, always a plan. But day after day he remained in the flat, poring over the file he'd acquired from his brother, brow furrowed and temper short.

She didn't expect him to share with her the details of anything-and it was clear this wasn't the sort of thing one should know the details of for reasons of self-preservation. But it would be nice.

The noise of an engine idling pulled Molly from her worries and by chance, she looked over as a black limousine parked itself next to her on the street, and the window rolled down. An auburn-haired woman peered out.

"Molly Hooper?" she called. "Mr. Holmes would like to see you."

Molly looked around, nervously. The street was deserted. What if this was a trap? "Um..."  
The woman sighed, and an unamused Mycroft Holmes leaned over into view from the opposite seat. "Your caution is appreciated Miss Hooper, but we have a schedule this evening. If you please."

The door opened and the sophisticated woman retreated to make room for Molly. She cautiously got in, juggling her box with some difficulty. When she was finally settled she noticed Mycroft across from her, looking pristine as ever. "I'm sorry-did you say we had a schedule?" The other woman reached across her cardboard burden, and shut the door before Molly could protest. With that, they were off.

"Indeed Miss Hooper I did, though that all depends directly upon you." Mycroft Holmes answered. "I know this past week must have been very stressful for you, and that the loss of your job is a great sacrifice. Please accept my deepest gratitude, and the gratitude of our family."

"Your family knows?" Molly gasped.

"Just our mother." Mycroft reassured her. "Sherlock and I agreed that at her time of life, it would be more dangerous for her to think Sherlock was dead than know the truth."

"I see." Molly managed, though she really didn't.

Mycroft was intent on explaining it to her, though. "We do not wish for you to suffer unduly for your trouble. Sherlock tells me there is a position at Bart's that you have been wanting for some time."

Molly had to think-he must be talking about Caroline's old position, Head Pathology Assist. She remembered mentioning the position to Sherlock once, joking that if she got it they would be able to work more closely on his cases. At the time, he had pressed his mouth into a line and said "Hmm", studiously not looking at her.

"But...that's way over my head. And how would you clear my record? Everyone knows what I've done."

"Surely you realize when Sherlock is acquitted, you will be as well. More than likely they'll be crawling over each other to apologize and avoid a civil suit brought against them for faulty firing practices. The job will be yours."

Molly swallowed hard and asked the foremost question on her mind. "What about, in the meantime? When Sherlock leaves?"

"I think you'll find your severance package is unusually large. You could afford the rent at a much bigger flat for three years or so, if you wanted. I think you'll find, when you acquire the position, that it too, will have a raised value."

"No," Molly fidgeted, rubbing her hands on her knees. "I mean, what about protection? From...from him?"

Mycroft's head tilted, a silent question.

She licked her lips, glanced at the silent and staring woman next to her. "From-from Jim."  
Mycroft's mouth opened slightly and he glanced at the woman. "I see. Then Sherlock didn't...tell you."

Molly blinked. "Didn't what?"

"Miss Hooper, James Moriarty shot himself on the roof that day, with Sherlock." Mycroft looked her in the eye. "He is dead."

The box of stuff nearly slid off Molly's knees. "Wh-what?" she blurted. "But-I haven't-"

"We have the body. No one knows except Scotland Yard, however, they won't be able to get access to it until weeks from now after much legal nonsense. That is where I hoped to obtain your...expertise."

Slowly, through the relief of knowing Jim was dead, it dawned on her what he was asking.

"Wait. You want me to..."

"Sherlock has praised your skills highly. You are the only one he condescended to work with at Bart's, correct? Anthea, if you please."

The woman beside Molly consulted a Blackberry. "Keen eye for anomalous occurrences in criminal victims including unobserved traumas and attention to otherwise benign details," she said in a smooth, husky voice.

Molly nodded dumbly, stunned by the fact Sherlock would share something like that with the brother he seemed to loathe. Stunned Sherlock would say anything like that at all, much less about her.

"Um," she repeated, "don't you have someone more...qualified? I'm not even finished with my doctorate."

"Your former relationship with Moriarty makes you an excellent candidate to perform the necessary procedures. That, and my brother's praise, is all I require in the way of qualifications."

Molly paled at his mention of her indiscretion with Moriarty. Of course, though he had never talked about it, Sherlock knew-it stood to reason if he told his brother about all those other things, he would also tell him...that.

"You would have plenty of help. And Anthea here would oversee and assist the entire operation."

Molly was quiet, thinking. She had never wanted to set eyes on Jim Moriarty again, living or dead. Never had she imagined this; him ending up under her knife. It was a chilling thought.

"The data we glean from this could be invaluable in restoring Sherlock's reputation." Mycroft gently reminded her. "At some point, he will be able to return to life as it once was."

Would they really? She wondered, shifting the box on her lap. It seemed impossible, from where she was sitting. But far be it from her to tell Mycroft or Sherlock Holmes what to do.

"Okay," she said quietly. "When are we doing this?"

Mycroft raised a brow. "Now, of course. I'm afraid there's not a moment to lose."

A/N: The Mystery of How To Do Those Linebreak Thingys has been solved. Hope this is easier to read.


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